The Little Bird
by swimmingfox
Summary: Sansa decides to go with The Hound during the Battle of Blackwater. Survival in the woods, a lot of growing up, and a tangled relationship follow... Slow-burn. A re-post from the ASOIAF category.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi all,**

**This is a re-post from the ASOIAF category. I realise that it's a very common starting point, but hope that you enjoy it. It's essentially TV canon, with little influences from the books. The characters and background are of course, all George R.R. Martin's. In my version, Sansa is 16, and I imagine Sandor as a bit younger than his tv persona. Let me know what you think as you read...**

**No spoilers past the end of Season 3 of the show.**

'No little bird, I won't hurt you'.

His voice had a near-imperceptible trace of softness that she'd never heard before. He had leaned right down so that he was almost level with her face, and she steeled herself to hold his gaze, which she couldn't quite read, smelling the wine, and the fire, and death. He reeked of it. His face was coated in blood, drizzling down his burnt cheek and smeared in his brows. There were patches of blood on his chest mail, and on the armour on his shoulders. His hair dangled thickly in clumps in front of the burnt side of his face. Though the moment lasted only a breath, she felt suspended, paralysed with fear and indecision. The thought of going with _him_, out there, into the battle-fury, and then – beyond.

She imagined them riding into woods that disappeared into darkness, and being swallowed whole. But - what would happen if she stayed here? Would she simply be another trophy for another ruler? Or if the Lannisters somehow triumphed - how long would she last as Joffrey's tortured plaything if he wasn't there, like he'd sneered in the corridor that time, to come between her and 'her beloved king'? But that was here, within castle walls, eyes at every corner. What would happen when it was just the two of them? She was still scared of him: his hulk, and his unpredictability, lurching from something nearing a gruff chivalry to drunken monster in a second. She swallowed. Her awkward sound seemed to break something unspoken. The Hound breathed in suddenly and gutturally, and he straightened, towering over her again, his face setting. He turned stiffly and walked to the door, reaching for the latch.

'Wait -' He froze, and slowly turned.

'I'll – I'm coming.'

For a moment, his face lost its hard edge. Then he nodded, curtly. 'Get some things together. A small bundle, no more.' He looked down at her frame. 'Your plainest dress. If you have one. There'll be no highborn ladies on the road.' His grin was slightly cruel, and then he was serious again. 'I'll fetch horses. Latch the door. Don't let _anyone_ in. I'll knock four times.' And he was gone.

Sansa ran to the door and pushed up the bolt. She leant her back against it, her heart hammering high in her throat. She could hardly breathe. Underneath her terror she felt faintly excited: a heroine, stealing away in the dead of night. She would be brave. She would make it back to Winterfell.

Quickly, she gathered up some things. A brown woollen dress too hot for King's Landing. A spare smock. She tumbled her jewels – two necklaces, a bracelet, a charm with a direwolf on it – into a square of cloth used for her moonbloods and wrapped them up. She pulled a coverlet from the bed and began to place her clothes on it. Suddenly, her door rattled. Someone was outside, pushing against it. Sansa's heart stopped. There was a frantic light knock on the door and an urgent whisper.

'Sansa! Let me in!' It was Shae.

Sansa exhaled, and rushed to the door. 'He said I'm not supposed to let anyone in,' she whispered.

Shae slipped into the room. '_Who_ says?' Her eyes caught the clothes on Sansa's bed. She turned urgently towards her. 'Sansa. What is happening?'

Sansa's eyes dropped to the floor. 'The – The Hound. He's leaving. He's taking me to Winterfell'.

Shae's voice hardened. 'Is he.' There was a silence. Sansa's eyes flickered upwards for a second, and seeing Shae's penetrating gaze, fell quickly down again. She gulped, and nodded. Shae grabbed Sansa's chin and forced it upwards, looking at her fiercely. 'Why are you blushing?'

'No!' Sansa protested. 'I'm – I'm not, it's just – you're making me blush. I know what you think. And I don't care. It's too dangerous for me here. He's right. I need to go'.

Shae's eyes softened slightly, and her hand moved to Sansa's cheek. 'You're right.' She gazed at her. 'It is too dangerous here for you. But that man – he is a monster. You don't know what men are – '

'I _do_ know. I doknow what they are like, don't you think I've seen it? Joffrey, Ser Meryn, Ser Boros, Littlefinger, those men who attacked me – _they_ are monsters. The Hound – I know he's horrible, but he's never hurt me, never been cruel, except in words. I've seen it. I – I think he can be kind.'

Shae inhaled, and breathed out heavily, putting her hands on Sansa's shoulders. 'They are all the same. They all want one thing. Why does he want to take you away when he can be much faster on his own?'

There was a sudden heavy knock, and another, and then two more. Shae glanced towards the door, and back at Sansa.

'That's him', Sansa gulped.

Shae's jaw clenched and she let her hands fall. Sansa went to the door, and suddenly the Hound was in the room, seeming bigger and bloodier than ever. He was carrying a large bundle. His eyes steeled as he saw Shae, who jutted her chin out defiantly, holding his look.

'I told you not to let anyone in.' The Hound didn't move his eyes from Shae's.

Sansa spoke as calmly as she could. 'It's Shae. I trust her.'

'You shouldn't trust anyone', he said, viciousness creeping into his voice.

'Apart from you?' Shae jerked her chin up at him fiercely. 'What makes you so special?'

The Hound ran a hand through his hair with impatience. 'I don't have time for this.' He turned to Sansa. 'Do you want to come or not?'

Sansa took a jagged breath in, and held it. 'Yes.'

The Hound went to the bed, and gathered up her things into a pile in the coverlet. 'Then for all the Gods' sakes let's go, before the whole damned castle falls in.'

'Sansa, please don't go with this man.' Shae had a measured note of pleading in her voice as the Hound took a thin leather cord from a pocket and wound it around the bundle.

'Leave off, woman,' he said, shaking his head. 'She can make up her own mind.'

'Shae.' Sansa looked at her pleadingly. 'He – he won't hurt me. I know he won't.' The Hound straightened up with the bundle, his eyes on Sansa.

Shae looked from one to the other. She tilted her face up to the Hound and narrowed her eyes. 'You do anything to her, I'll kill you.'

He leaned down to her, impassive, a slight smile on his lips. 'I'd kill you first.' He looked at Sansa. 'I've a boy waiting with the horses. I'd like to get to him before he has his head removed.'

Sansa turned to Shae, her eyes filling.

Shae shrugged, with a small, wondering shake of her head. 'Do what you must do.'

'Thank you, Shae.' Sansa turned to the Hound, who reached for the door latch.

'Wait – ' Shae grabbed Sansa's arm. 'Wait outside,' she instructed the Hound, giving him no option.

'Hells,' he sighed fiercely under his breath, and left the room.

Shae shut the door behind him, and leant down to her ankle, pulling up her skirts. She took out the dagger from its hold on her lower leg, and held it in her mouth. She untied the legstrap, and quickly lifted Sansa's skirt and tied it round her calf, before taking the dagger from her mouth and slotting it into place. The blade pressed coldly onto Sansa's skin.

Shae straightened up. 'Anything happens, you use it. Don't hesitate.'

Sansa gazed at her wonderingly. 'Who are you Shae, really?'

Shae shrugged, and smoothed her hands over Sansa's hair. 'I'm no one.'

'Will I ever see you again?'

'I don't know.'

'When it's all over, you could - come to Winterfell', Sansa said, though she knew it to be untrue.

'I don't like the cold,' Shae replied simply. Sansa felt hot tears welling up again. Shae wiped one away. 'We may yet see each other again. Who knows what lies in our futures.' Sansa fell, sobbing, into Shae's arms. Shae stroked her hair. 'Goodbye, precious child. Don't trust anyone. Be brave. Be a woman. And be careful.'

Sansa pulled back, her eyes full of concern and fear. 'What about you?'

Shae smiled calmy, looking stronger than ever. 'I'll be alright. I know how to take care of myself. And now you need to learn. Go.'

Sansa took a deep breath, then, looking past Shae to her dressing table, went over and grabbed the doll that Father had given her. She gave a last glance to her lady's maid, and opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

The Hound was waiting just outside, kicking the wall with his toe impatiently. 'Thank the Gods', he said, as she emerged. 'I thought I was going to have to challenge her to a fucking duel.' As he spoke, he caught sight of Sansa's doll and raised his eyebrows, faintly amused. 'Got everything you need?'

'Yes,' she said, not making eye contact, and grabbing her bundle from him to stuff it inside.

He gave a small shake of his head, as if she was a child. 'Come on.' He strode down the hallway, carrying his sack, leaving Sansa to walk as quickly as she could after him.

He turned down a curving stone stairwell, along a corridor, and over a stone bridge. Sansa could hear a churning cloud of noise. Men, or boats, or horses.

'Will we have to go through the - fighting?' she asked tremulously to his back.

'No.' The Hound didn't turn around. 'It's our lot we have to fear'. They emerged at a hallway utterly unfamiliar to Sansa, with sloping walls. The Hound glanced carefully both left and right, and gestured with a sharp jerk of his head. 'This way. Stay close.'

Sansa hovered near his arm, starting to realise how dangerous this was. If anyone saw them – if Joffrey found out. The Hound halted suddenly. She almost clattered into him. He turned around, looking at her. Or rather, looking at her hair.

'What?' Sansa shrank slightly under his stare.

He frowned, darkly pensive. 'You're too recognisable. Anyone would know that flaming hair in a heartbeat'. He scrutinised her, for unnervingly too long, and then gave one of his sniffs. 'This way'. He strode left down a dark corridor and stooped into a doorway, opening it. Sansa followed him.

It was an airless, plain room, with an unmade bed and an empty fire grate. The Hound went to a large wooden chest under the small window and opened it.

'Whose room is this?' she said in a half-whisper.

'Mine.' He crouched over the chest. Sansa cast her eyes around the room. There was no matting, very plain carpets and curtains, a goblet on a table and some spilled wine. It smelt stale. The Hound pulled two long cloaks from the chest and came towards her. He shook one of them out, and swept it around her back and over her shoulders. The coarse, brown material tumbled down to her ankles. He drew two neckties under her chin, tied them there, and pulled the hood up over her hair.

'There,' he said, almost grinning, squinting down at her. 'A proper little fugitive.'

Sansa was about to retort when he suddenly shushed her, holding a finger up and listening intently. There was a distant, anguished cry and some scuttling feet.

'The battle's getting closer,' said the Hound quietly. 'We'd better fly.' He gestured to the door, and they slipped out.

*S*S*S*S*S

The Hound seemed to know the Keep inside out, whisking her through more corridors, and down more staircases, none of which Sansa had ever set foot in before. They began to be dark and musty, with lanterns set so far apart that you could barely see the next when out of the firelight of the last. She supposed they were servants' quarters. Suddenly there was a shout from around the corner ahead of them. The Hound stopped dead, and barged his shoulder into a left-hand doorway, yanking Sansa by the arm. He pulled her into the room and quickly shut the door, pressing her back up against it. Feet clattered past the door; there was the scrape of a spear on stone and someone growling 'get to it, you cowards'. He was still gripping her elbow and stood close against her, his chest heaving at her eye level. A clump of hair – someone else's hair – was matted with blood to his chain mail.

The sounds grew distant. Sansa tentatively looked up towards his face: he seemed to still be listening, eyes focused on the middle distance, his fingers whitening at her elbow.

'You're – you're hurting me.'

The Hound quickly looked down, embarrassed, and released his grip on her. He looked thoughtful for a second, and then angry. 'Fuck this. We'll never get out if we keep having to hide. Come on'. He took a step back away from her, and reached for the door handle.

As they exited the tower, a soldier dressed in a goldcloak ran right into them.

'Curses on you, get out of my –' He saw the white cloak. 'My apologies, ser.' He glanced at Sansa. She quickly dropped her eyes to the floor, hoping her cloak concealed at least some of her face. He turned sideways to let them pass.

They reached the stables in the shadow of the Keep unnoticed.

'What's that smell?' Sansa wrinkled her nose. It was stinging, and acrid: smoke mixed with something rotten.

'Wildfire,' said the Hound, ducking under an arch and gesturing for her to follow.

A boy not more than twelve was standing nervously, holding the reins of two horses. The Hound's black destrier was snorting furiously and thudding a back hoof into the ground. The other was a light brown palfrey, that moved around restlessly. They were both saddled and had bundles tied to their backs, the larger horse carrying a bow and arrowsheath.

The boy looked up at the Hound anxiously as they approached, and passed the reins to him. 'They don't like it, ser. And Stranger's getting itchy. I fed and watered them again.'

'Good lad.' The Hound took a small bag from his belt and threw it to him. 'I'd best get if I were you'.

'They said I've got to fight,' said the boy, his head bowed.

The Hound looked down at him. 'Just keep your head down then. You'll be alright'.

The boy seemed unconvinced. 'Thank you, ser.' He backed away, tucking the bag of coin in his sleeve, and vanishing through a small door at the back of the stables.

The Hound turned to Sansa. 'Ready?'

He held the reins of the mare and put his palm out. She placed her foot on his hand and he swiftly hoisted her up as she swung her leg over the horse, which harrumphed and jerked forwards. Sansa grabbed the reins and managed to stay upright, trying her best to calm her as the mare stamped and tossed her head.

He eyed her. 'You'd best ride with me if you can't control her.'

'Two horses are more use than one.' Sansa's firmness was slightly lessened by the horse's jittery steps.

'If you say so,' grunted the Hound, mounting his destrier. He took hold of a rope that attached the two horses. 'I'll keep hold of you until we get out of the city.'

*S*S*S*S*S

Outside the Red Keep's walls was an eerie sort of hell. They were forced to move slowly, past the crush of people, some pleading with Sansa and clutching at her ankles. Women ran past them, clutching snot-streaked youngborn, their blankets dangling. Goldcloaks moved amongst them, pushing boys and young men towards the walls nearest the Mud Gate. The boys were stumbling, trying to fix helmets, and clutching spears twice as tall as themselves. Sansa could see a green tinge in the sky over the harbour, where smoke wreathed and feathered in huge clouds, as if dragons had come to wreak their wrath.

The Hound steered them past the Alchemist's Hall, turning left before Flea Bottom, for which Sansa was thankful. She couldn't bear to think what it was like in the slums now. They reached the Old Gate, which was eerily quiet. Three goldcloaks of the City Watch manned it and stood to attention.

The Hound rode right up to them, with Sansa behind, and turned his destrier to the side. 'Open this up.'

One of the goldcloaks, the oldest amongst them, stepped forward. 'No one passes.'

'You know who I am?' said the Hound in a low growl.

'Ay ser, I do, but they're the King's orders.'

'I'm the Kings_guard_, you cunt, whose orders do you think I'm acting on?'

'No one told us,' said another guard, a younger man, stepping forward to peer at Sansa. She bowed her head and shrank into her hood, but she could see that he recognised her. 'It's the Stark girl,' he shouted back to his fellow guards.

'Yes, anyone with eyes in their skulls can see that it's the Stark girl,' said the Hound, 'and I have orders to get her through this gate. Now fucking open it before I open you.'

The older guard hesitated. Suddenly there was a yell, and the younger guard had raised his sword, rushing towards the Hound and catching him in the upper arm. In a flash, the Hound had pulled his sword from his back and sliced open his neck. The guard gave a strangled yelp, like a dog being trodden on, and whipped sideways, crashing to the floor. The older guard came at them and the Hound's sword curved and gashed him across the belly. He sank to his knees, then face first into the mud. The Hound swung off his horse and walked towards the third guard, the youngest of all, who was rooted to the spot as the Hound approached him. Sansa stilled her mare. He was small, smaller than her, and the Hound towered over him. The guard looked up in silence, abject pleading in his face.

'Don't kill him,' Sansa said under her breath. She shut her eyes too late. The Hound took his dagger from his belt, held the guard's head by his helmet so that his neck was exposed, and cut his throat.

*S*S*S*S*S

And then they were outside the walls of the city. The Hound hadn't said a word after letting the last guard's body slump to the ground; he had wrenched open the portcullis, and swung back onto his horse, not looking at Sansa. He had let go of her mare's reins as soon as they were through the gate, and ignored her when she had shouted to him about shutting it, merely digging his heels into his horse and galloping up the track. Sansa had turned to look back at the city walls as they reached the brow of the first hill: she could see some dark shapes emerging from the gate. People were escaping.

They rode under a cold, half-full moon, the Hound always just ahead of her, though she could tell he was riding slowly for her. She had hardly been on a horse in all her time at King's Landing, and when she had it'd been side saddle, and at leisure. She hadn't ridden apace since Winterfell, on her beautiful cream and grey dappled young mare, Wildflower. Ayra had mocked that name.

Ayra. As Sansa rode further away from Kings Landing, the not-knowing gave her a searing pain in her stomach. She surely wasn't there any more, or if she was she'd died a long time ago. But Sansa just didn't know. It was as if her sister had been swallowed up by the earth and coveted as treasure, or dissolved into air, a halfling thing, neither alive nor dead, and always just out of reach.

They rode on, the uneven drumbeats of their horses' hooves the only sound. After what seemed an eternity, the Hound pulled up, his destrier breathing heavily. 'Can you go on?'

Sansa was exhausted, and her inner thighs were rubbed raw. She nodded meekly. 'How much further?'

The Hound jerked his head past her. 'Until we can't see that any more'.

She followed his eyes down to the valley to the dark shadow which must have been King's Landing, many leagues away but tinged with a sickly green, rising off it like steam.

He turned his horse and eyed the mare. 'Keep a tight hold, she'll do the rest.' And he was off again.

A light the colour of sour milk was faint on the horizon when they finally stopped. Sansa could barely keep her eyes open. Her lower half felt like a pummelled straw dummy. He'd been right: she had clung onto her reins until her knuckles had whitened, and the mare had followed the bigger horse dutifully, even as Sansa's chin had sagged to her chest. The Hound swung off his horse, and led it and her mare into a copse on the side of the track. Tying the reins, he put out his hands to help her dismount. Sansa could hardly move. She looked at him weakly.

'Come on,' he said, not unkindly.

Swallowing wearily, she used her hands to lift her outer thigh over the saddle towards him. He pulled her ankle over so that she was facing him, gripped her by the waist, and lowered her gently down, wincing slightly. He was holding his arm slightly awkwardly. As she landed, Sansa staggered and almost fell.

The Hound caught her by the arm and righted her, laughing under his breath. 'Not ridden in a while, then?'

Sansa shook her head, unamused, and looked around. 'Where are we?'

'Up the kingsroad,' he said, looking around him.

'Is it safe?'

'Nowhere's going to be safe, girl.' Fear pinched her throat. The Hound drew a breath in. 'But this as good a place as any for now. The horses need to rest. And so do you, by the looks of you.' He pulled a rolled-up blanket from the load on the back of his horse, grimacing again slightly as he stretched, and handed it to her. 'Get some sleep'. He nodded curtly to a hollow, matted with leaves, next to a great oak tree's exposed roots.

_Here?_ Sansa lowered her chin, trying not to look anxious.

'What?' said the Hound. She bit her lip. 'Were you expecting swandown beds and lemon cakes?'

'I don't know, I – I thought there might be… inns,' she said, feeling her cheeks flush.

'There might be, down the road,' he said. 'But it's best to keep our heads down while we're in easy riding distance of King's Landing. You're too recognisable. Go on, get.' He nodded again to the hollow.

Sansa clutched her blanket to her and limped over, feeling his eyes on her back. She deliberately didn't look over again, instead wrapping the blanket as best she could around herself and lying down. The ground was slightly damp; its chill pressed on her hips. She made a hood of the top part of the blanket and curled up, wrapping her arms around her and gazing up at the sky, which was grey-blue, uncertain. An empty wood full of shadows and no one but _him_. She was at his mercy. He might do anything. She hoped she'd made the right choice - that staying in King's Landing would be too treacherous, that she'd be as good as dead had she stayed. She felt her eyelids grow heavy.

The Hound groaned slightly. What was he doing? She could hear him shifting his armour and mail, which clinked gently. She quietly turned over to look at him from underneath her blanket hood. In the first wisps of dawn, she could see him sitting up against a tree, a wineskin in one hand and the armour of his left shoulder gripped with the other, trying to pull it free. He was trying to stifle his sounds, but he was obviously in pain. He loosened one of the leather buckles, working it slowly, and suddenly froze, jerking his head to look at her.

Sansa clenched her jaw and didn't move her eyes. 'Are you - hurt?'

'Go to sleep.' He looked away. Sansa remembered the fight at the Old Gate with the goldcloaks. One of them must have struck him.

She sat up, her blanket wrapped round her. 'Let me see.'

'Go to sleep.' He sounded more threatening this time.

'Why didn't you say something?'

'I didn't want you fussing.' He took a swig from his wineskin. 'Which is what you're doing now.'

'Is it deep? Won't it need dressing?'

He turned his face away from her and spoke bitterly. 'Don't worry your pretty little head.'

'I _should_ worry,' said Sansa, feeling bold. 'If you die then who is going to take me to Winterfell?'

'Believe me, it takes more than a pinprick in the arm to kill me.'

She could see that there was pain underneath the bravado. 'Please.' She began to get up. 'Let me help.'

'Leave me be, girl,' said the Hound, more brutally. 'You're worse than a fucking septa'.

The words bit. Sansa's face set. She lay back down, deliberately facing away from him. After a few minutes, she heard the Hound shifting, and the shake of his mail. He was breathing heavily, and was trying to keep his grunts quiet. She lay still, exhaustion beginning to work over her in waves, and shut her eyes to the repeated slosh of wine in its skin.

*S*S*S*S*S

She couldn't have slept more than a few hours. The morning light was queasy, and a mist that was almost rain clung to the trees. Sansa's limbs were stiff with cold. Her stomach cramped with a dull ache of hunger. She stretched out slowly and carefully, wiggling her numb toes, and rolled over. The Hound was asleep, sitting up against the same tree trunk. He looked a mess. His mouth hung open and his hair was bedraggled, stuck to his face with the damp of the morning and the blood. He'd removed his armour and chainmail and was dressed only in his breeches, shirt and boots. His Kingsguard cloak covered his legs and his sword lay across his lap. He looked smaller without his armour, though his shoulders were still broader than most. He had wrapped torn material around his left shoulder and chest, the centre of which was dark with blood. It wouldn't kill him, she could see that; but it didn't look good.

She needed to relieve herself. She arose as quietly as she could, keeping the blanket wrapped around her, and stole quietly further into the copse, trying to ignore her throbbing, saddle-sore inner thighs, and looking for a place hidden from him.

The wood was so quiet. There was no birdsong, or branches rustling. Only a thickly chilled silence. Anyone could be out here. Soldiers fighting for the Starks or the Lannisters, bandits, or hungry paupers who'd fled through the open gate at King's Landing after they'd ridden away. She pulled her dress up over her knees, hardly daring to look around, and crouched down. She willed herself to go quickly, feeling exposed and vulnerable. As she shook herself, she suddenly stiffened. It was as if the wolf-sense was in her. There was no sound but she felt the hairs on her arms and legs rise and her neck prickle. She held her breath, and kept her hands close to her ankles, her dress still hovering around her knees.

There was a crunch of a twig underfoot and in a heartbeat someone was very near her. Sansa whipped Shae's bound dagger from its ankle hoop, standing up as she did so. With a cry, she wheeled around, and stabbed wildly at the hand that was suddenly in the air in front of her.


	3. Chapter 3

'FUCK!'

Too late, Sansa saw what she had done. The Hound gave a ragged cry, staggering back and looking bewilderingly at his palm. He swore again, his voice echoing around the wood. Blood began to drip at his wrist. She looked at him in horror, mouth open. And then she ran.

S*S*S*S*S*S

She did not run far. She knew she could not continue on her own in these wildlands. Sobbing, she slowed, and stopped, leaning over to pant. She was still clenching the dagger; nearly half of the blade had a thin sheen of blood. It must have gone almost right through his hand. Oh Gods, what had she done? She turned and retraced her steps, picking up the blanket she'd dropped on the way.

As she reached the edge of the small clearing where they had slept, she could see him sitting there, where he'd slept, his back to her. She placed one foot in front of the other as slowly as she could.

'You've a nerve.'

She stopped dead. He didn't turn round. 'I'm sorry.'

'Come to finish me off?'

She couldn't tell how angry he was. His hair hung over the burnt side of his face. She took a tentative step forward and took a deep breath. 'From the bottom of my heart –'

'Save your fancy words.' He was holding his hand up at his chest. 'Come here.' She wavered. 'Come _here,_' he said again, more threateningly.

Sansa stepped up to him, waiting for – she didn't know what. Maybe that was it. She'd gone too far, attacking him. He wouldn't forgive her in a hurry. Maybe he'd kill her now, make it easier to get further on his own. Her heart hammered.

He looked up at her sidelong, inscrutable. 'Planning to use that again, are you?' He nodded at her hand. The dagger was still gripped tightly in her hand. She shook her head. 'Give it here.'

Sansa wilted, and held out her hand.

The Hound took the dagger with his good hand quickly and placed it, with the blade flat, underneath his legs. 'Gods, girl, what were you doing out there?' he snapped, more animatedly angry. 'I wake up and you're gone. I thought you'd been stolen by brigands, or worse. Gods.'

Sansa blushed. 'I was just – I had to...' She looked down at the ground.

He suddenly understood, and closed his eyes and shook his head. 'Well, you didn't need to go wandering so far into the damned woods. I'll not fucking bite. Unlike you.' He exhaled a sudden, sour laugh. 'You're a Stark and no mistake.'

Sansa flushed and looked down at her feet. 'I'm so truly sorry, I didn't know it was you, I – panicked.'

'Oh that's what it was, then? Didn't look like panic to me. King's Landing didn't leach all the wolfblood from you, did it? Damn near crucified me.'

Sansa looked down at his hand. 'Does it – does it hurt?'

'Ay, it hurts. Reckon you'd flinch a bit if someone speared your palm right through.' He held it up for her to see.

There was a deep crescent-shaped gash in the middle of his hand, curving around the bottom of his thumb. Blood had trailed down his wrist and between his fingers. He leant towards her, his voice dropping to a near-growl. 'That's my sword hand.'

Sansa's mouth drooped. 'Please ser, let me help.'

'Enough of your sers.' He sniffed. 'I need to get to some water. Clean this all up.' He gestured to his shoulder. 'Some good I'm going to be. Get me some food.' He nodded to his stallion's saddlebag.

Sansa walked over to the horses. They were filthy from the muddy ride away from the city. The stallion stamped a hoof and moved away as she reached to the bag on the ground. She pulled out bread and apples, her muscles tense, and took them over to the Hound, not daring to make eye contact.

He tore some chunks off the bread, using his knees to hold it, and handed her a piece. 'Eat.'

Sansa sat down a few feet away. She kept her eyes on the ground, and chewed glumly. The bread was slightly stale.

'Where did you get that damned blade?' he asked, his mouth full.

Sansa hesitated, knowing he wouldn't like the answer. 'Shae gave it to me'.

He exhaled sharply. 'Ay, and I should have known. That vicious bitch.'

The insult stung. 'Don't call her that. She was just trying to protect me. She was the only one – ' she looked at him, and then down at her bread. 'She was one of the only ones who looked out for me.'

There was a pause. The Hound eyed her more curiously. 'You know she is Tyrion's bitch, don't you?'

Sansa almost laughed. 'What? That's slander. She was my lady's maid.'

He scoffed. 'She was no maid. He tried to keep it under his sleeve but I knew. Saw her creeping into his chambers of an evening after leaving you, and not coming out. Sly imp. All I had to do was mention it to the queen and that girl would have had been a bloody head on a spike.'

'So why didn't you?' She refused to accept it.

He looked at her more thoughtfully. 'I think he put her with you to keep you safe. And it worked, didn't it? She would have put my eyes out that last night given half the chance.'

Surely it was fiction. Her Shae, bedding Tyrion Lannister? He was the kindest of the family, there was no doubt, and had come to her aid more than once. But he was so devious, and so… small. 'So… they were lovers?'

The Hound snorted. 'Seven hells knows how a man that size can please a woman. But you get what you pay for I suppose.'

'What do you mean?'

The Hound looked over at her and raised his eyebrows. Sansa looked at him, puzzled. His shoulders dropped and he sighed, exasperated. 'She was his _whore_, you green girl. Were you that closeted?'

Sansa felt her cheeks flush. Shae, a whore? It didn't seem possible. The Hound was laughing under his breath at her. She chewed her bread angrily and glared at the ground.

After a few more moments, with the only sound the Hound chomping unselfconsciously on an apple, he shifted, looking at his injured hand. 'Right. We need to move.'

Sansa got up quickly and waited for his instruction.

He looked at her. 'You need to change out of that.' Sansa looked down at her greyblue gown. 'Did you bring another?' She nodded. 'Go on, then.'

She went to her bundle and pulled out the brown woollen dress and looked around nervously.

'Go on,' he insisted, nodding to the large oak beneath which she had slept. 'Don't stab anyone.'

It was just wide enough to conceal her from him. She loosed the cloak and reached for the ties at the back of her neck, struggling slightly. It was awkward. Shae normally did this. As quickly as she could, she eased off the dress over her smock, stepped out of it, and pulled herself into the brown one, hoping that the Hound couldn't see her. She didn't dare look. She managed to do it up at the back and walked back over to him.

The Hound looked up, his face impassive. 'Better. But you still look like a damned highborn to me.'

Sansa smoothed the dress down with her hands and looked at him resolutely. 'I can't help it,' she said, slightly defiantly.

'Maybe I need to give you a few cuts and bruises. Roll you around in the mud a bit.' He was unsmiling. Sansa glared at him. His mouth twitched slightly, then he nodded at the other gown which was draped over her hand. 'I need that.'

She handed it to him, puzzled. He put the hem of the skirt between his teeth and pulled. She gave a sharp breath in as the material tore, a jagged sound, startlingly loud. 'What are you _doing_?'

The Hound didn't reply, continuing to rip off a long strip and then wrapping it around the palm and thumb of his wounded hand, and then holding it up to inspect his handiwork. 'There. Might as well have a pretty bandage for it.'

That was one of her favourite dresses. She knew he was doing it to punish her, but steeled herself not to give him any satisfaction. 'It does look _very_ pretty,' she said.

He looked at her with a mixture of scowl and smile. 'Brush the horses down and pack all this up', he said, gesturing to the blankets and food.

She did as she was bid. The Hound rolled up his white cloak and kicked piles of leaves and earth to one side to make a small well in the ground, before placing it there and roughly covering it up. The mare nuzzled into Sansa's hand, and she brushed her down with a piece of rough sackcloth. When she looked over again, she could see the Hound cursing as he tried to manoeuvre himself into his armour.

The destrier snorted as she approached him. He was so huge. One wrong move and she'd be brained.

'Go on.' The Hound had walked up behind her.

Sansa eyed the horse nervously. 'He doesn't like me.'

'You're looking affrighted, that's why. He respects a steady hand.'

Sansa put a hand out tentatively and placed it on the horse's neck. She could feel the great muscles tense but kept her hand flat there. The Hound handed her an apple. She swallowed, and held it out to the stallion, who exhaled noisily at her, exploring the air in front of her hand, before taking a step closer and biting into it with an alarmingly loud crunch, his huge lips pared back. Sansa's heart was hammering.

'You'll always win Stranger round with an apple.' The Hound patted him forcefully on the flank.

Stranger. That's what the stable boy had said. Of course. There'd be no gentle names for the Hound's horse. It was just like him.

They saddled them both, Sansa helping the Hound as best she could, him wincing at every move.

He looked at his hand and his other injured shoulder, and gestured to her mare. 'You'd best get on her yourself',

Sansa tried to swing herself up, but the mare moved uneasily and she slid off. She tried unsuccessfully twice more, her cheeks growing angrily red as the Hound watched her, amused. Finally, she walked the mare to a tree with a gnarled, protruding root at knee height, and used it to hoist herself higher before clambering in a very unladylike manner onto her horse.

The Hound swung himself onto his destrier, groaning slightly. 'Let's go'.

He began to move off, and Sansa brought up her reins, wondering what he'd done with her dagger.

'And girl?' The Hound didn't turn round.

'Yes?'

'You owe me. I'll have a favour off you one of these days.'


	4. Chapter 4

They rode north on the road they had left at dawn, slowly and in silence. Before long they branched off, taking a smaller path. Sansa felt very exposed in daylight, even in her plain dress and the Hound's cloak, but they encountered no one. A small, flashing river appeared alongside them, before veering off away from the track. They followed its path until the river became shallow, and dismounted.

The Hound tied Stranger's reins to a large oak. 'Clean yourself up.'

Sansa shrugged. 'I'm alright.'

He looked at her impatiently. 'There'll not be a hot bath every evening on the road, you know.'

'I know.' She felt indignant. 'I know you think I'm a spoilt little girl but I'm not. I'm fine.'

The Hound grunted. 'Suit yourself.' He began to shrug off his armour awkwardly.

Sansa led her mare to a grassy, gently shelving bank with a small curve of hard mud beach. Her horse dipped her head gratefully, shuddering into it, and began to drink. Sansa stroked her neck where the muscles quivered, weaving her fingers through her matted mane, the colour of barley. She was so tired. Her buttocks and legs were so sore from riding, but they had to go on. She refused to give him the satisfaction of complaining about anything: her drab dress, the stale bread, the cold, and her aching legs. She would prove him wrong about her; that she wasn't a prissy, cosseted lady. That she was a Stark, just like he'd said.

Splashing sounds made her glance round. The Hound was sitting in his shirt and breeches on the low bank, legs in the river, bringing water up to his face and gasping into it. His armour was on the grass. He began to pull off his shirt and Sansa quickly turned back to her mare, feeling her cheeks flush. He had so little decorum, bold as anything out there in the open.

She scratched the neck of her horse, and hummed a shred of a lullaby very quietly to herself. The mare's thirst sated, she led her back to the trees, keeping her eyes on the ground. She tied her to the tree next to Stranger, and went to the stallion's reins. He whickered slightly, but she resolutely walked him to the river, trying not to show her fear. In the corner of her eye, the Hound was re-wrapping the old shirt he'd used as a bandage around his pale shoulder again. He was cursing under his breath.

Stranger seemed to want to drink the entire river, but she pulled him away after filling the waterskins up, and led him back to her mare. As she tied him to the oak, he rolled his eyes at her and snorted. She breathed a rush of air through her nose back at him, and his ears twitched. She touched his neck carefully. 'You're not so bad, are you, Stranger?'

Sansa turned back to the bank. The Hound had pulled his shirt back on and seemed to be sitting very still. She felt so guilty. His _sword_ hand. He could have been anyone, though. Why had he been creeping up on her like that?

She scuffed her feet on the ground, and noticed a flash of deep orange in the bushes next to the oak tree. She walked over to have a look. It was jewelweed, the muted green leaves harbouring little flowers shaped like bell sleeves, bright red in the centre. She knew it had healing properties – Maester Luwin had liked to teach her about plants and herbs; she'd even embroidered jewelwood flowers after studying some in the weirwood. She knelt down and picked a few clumps, flowers too, and mashed them in her fists. She pulled out her violet dress from her mare's saddlebag, took a deep breath, and walked over to him.

The Hound was starting to wind the bandage he'd made with the hem of her dress back round his wounded hand. He'd washed off the blood from his palm and wrist.

Sansa stood at his shoulder. 'You should - have a fresh one.'

He glanced round and up at her, suspicious, before turning back to the river. 'Ay, if you like.'

She turned her dress upside down and looked at the torn hem. Well, it was ruined now anyway. Putting the frayed edge between her teeth, she bit down hard and pulled it, as he had done, loudly ripping off a long strip, and then knelt down on the bank next to him.

She opened her hand, full of crumpled jewelweed, slowly springing back out into her palm. The juice trickled down her little finger. 'Also – you should put this on it'.

The Hound looked at her, and at her outstretched hand in faint surprise. 'What are you now, a _maegi_?'

'It should soothe the pain a little,' Sansa said, as firmly as she dared. 'Our maester taught me'.

He raised his eyebrows slightly. 'First you stab me, then you want to patch me up. How do I know that's not poisonous?'

'I need you to get me to Winterfell,' Sansa said, with quiet resolution. 'I'll poison you once I'm back home.' The Hound shot her a dark, amused look.

Without really thinking, she took up his hand. He stiffened, and his expression turned to one of mild alarm, and wariness. She held his palm face up, with her own hand, so much smaller and paler than his, beneath it, and bunched the ball of mulched jewelweed against the large, rude cut that curved round his thumb. Holding the leaves there with her thumb, she took the new strip of her dress in her other hand and leant down to the river to wet it. As she did so, she could feel his arm muscles tense to hold her there, a balancing act of her thumb and fingers around his hand, and his whole frame holding her up. She tightened her grip to pull herself back up, and then began to wrap the soaked bandage diagonally around his hand, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on her work.

His breathing was long and quiet, and she felt his eyes move up to her face. She wound the rag around his thumb, tucked its end under the main bandage and folded her hands down at her lap. He continued to hold his hand in the air, a big dark palm slung with faded violet flowers.

'There.' Sansa looked up to meet his gaze. She couldn't tell what it meant: a mixture of curiosity, amusement, and - something else, darker.

The unburnt side of his face was turned towards her; he hadn't done a job of washing it. Feeling brazen, and aware of how yielding he'd suddenly become, she reached round to take up her damaged dress, and quickly tore off another scrap of material. She leant back again to the river to wet it, and put it up to his face. The Hound flinched then, jerking backwards in a tiny movement.

Sansa pulled back her hand. 'It's just – you've still got blood on your face'.

Whilst he didn't move, she could see his shoulders lower just a little, and he kept his cheek turned to her. She lifted the rag again, and, her heart throwing itself at her ribcage, began to dab very gently at his eyebrow. He kept totally still, his eyes fixed fiercely on the river.

She shifted her knees a little closer to him, to clean his cheekbone and the side of his nose. 'Can you –' He looked at her. His eyes were just inches from hers. 'The other side,' Sansa said, as delicately as she could.

There was a pause. Then the Hound slowly turned the burnt side of his face towards her, looking down at her knees. It was the first time that she had really, properly, looked at it. The skin was marbled, white and red, stretched taut in places, and sunken in others, and angrily shiny. A clump of hair was stuck to his temple with dark, dried blood. Sansa gingerly used her other hand to pull it away, her sleeve brushing his forehead. She had to tug it more than once, and was sure that it must hurt, but he didn't move.

She wiped the blood clean in two short swipes, and lowered her hands. 'There.' He raised his brown-grey eyes up to her, his face still turned downwards. He looked almost vulnerable. She smiled. 'You look a little less monstrous.' She wished the words back as soon as she'd uttered them. They hung in the air.

His eyes steeled, and the Hound returned. 'A _little_ less.'

'A _lot_ less,' she said quickly, hopelessly.

He got up, grabbing his wineskin and taking a swig, before jamming the cork back in and stalking back to the horses.


	5. Chapter 5

After that, they rode without talking for most of the day, Sansa riding behind the Hound, who almost never turned round. Every time she remembered what she had said, she bit on her tongue, hard. She was an idiot. She'd got him to soften, just for a moment, and ruined it.

They stopped in the middle of the afternoon to rest the horses. The Hound wordlessly passed her some salt beef from his saddlebag and she sat some paces away from him, feeling miserable. The beef needed endless chewing. Her legs ached maddeningly. As they got back on their horses, she asked timidly what route they were taking. She had realised that she had no idea where they were - he could be taking her anywhere and she wouldn't know the difference.

The Hound sniffed. 'We're shadowing the kingsroad. It'd be madness to be out in the open on it. Too many enemies to meet.' He seemed to read her thoughts, and looked at her bitterly. 'Don't worry, we're heading north.' He clicked his tongue to Stranger and moved off.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

He obviously knew how to avoid people. They hadn't seen a soul by the time the moon was bright, a doleful eye peeping through the trees. They came to rest in a small dell surrounded by hazel and birch trees, and the Hound instructed Sansa to find firewood. It was good to be further away from him and his accusatory silence for a few minutes, even if it did mean going on her own. She walked in a circle a little way from the dell gathering the driest sticks she could find, moving between the puddles of moonlight, and trying not to imagine who, or _what_, might be watching her from the darkness.

When she returned, the horses were laid down for the night, and the blankets unpacked. The Hound was kneeling awkwardly over a small bundle of moss and leaves, and whittling a small thin stick into a flatter piece of wood, swearing quietly as the sparks failed to take. His shoulder was clearly hampering him. Sansa placed her bundle of branches down and sat down on a blanket.

'Get us some food, then,' muttered the Hound from his crouching position.

Gods, he was so rude. She got up again, and found bread, cheese, and salt beef, which she looked at glumly. The pale cheese was sweating slightly now. It made her think of Lord Varys' forehead. King's Landing might have been a prison, but they had fed her well. Sweetmeats, cakes, cream… She hoped desperately that they'd find an inn soon.

The Hound finally started a fire. As the flames flickered, he eyed them warily, blowing on them and piling Sansa's sticks on top, and then sat back, tearing at the bread that she'd left by his side. They ate, silently, both looking into the fire, Sansa seated on the other side of the flames.

He licked his fingers. 'That's the last of it. We'll have to find our own food tomorrow'.

No inns yet then. Was he going to avoid them on purpose, both so as not to encounter anyone and to punish her? Soon enough she'd be sinking her teeth into raw deer flesh like a proper direwolf.

'Cat got your tongue, girl?'

She looked up at him, her chin resting on her knees, which she was hugging tightly to her chest. 'I don't have anything to say.'

The Hound snorted. 'I find that hard to believe.'

Sansa stared into the fire. His silent treatment of her was obviously over for the day. Fine. She'd talk to him. 'Did Joffrey know that you left?'

He took a swig from his wineskin, which never seemed to run out. 'Ay, reckon he did.'

'What did he say? He didn't _let_ you go?'

'He didn't say much. But I did tell him to fuck himself.'

Sansa breathed in slowly, looking at him with something close to admiration. To have seen Joffrey's face. But - his wrath would be terrible.

The Hound read her thoughts. 'He had it coming. I was too long in that place.'

All the awful things he must have done under Joffrey's command. Killing Ayra's butcher boy. The battle, and so many others. But - he hadn't been forced. He could have gone at any time. She went to speak, but hesitated.

'Go on,' he said, a slight provocation in his voice. 'What else?'

'At the Gate. Why did you kill that last guard? You didn't have to.'

'Didn't I?'

He wanted to scare her. 'You said to me before that killing was a sweet thing. Do you really mean that?'

The Hound breathed in jaggedly. 'When you're brought up fighting, it's what you do best. And yes, there is satisfaction in it. Maybe one day you'll see that.'

Sansa looked at him. 'I can't see it. Not even for my enemies.'

'What, so you don't want to see Joffrey's head on a spike? I didn't take you for a liar.'

She gazed into the flames. 'I want Joffrey dead. But I wouldn't feel satisfied. It won't bring my father back. Or Arya.'

They were silent. The sound of the fire was like someone clapping gnats on their skin. Sansa thought over the night of the battle. 'Why did you come for me?'

He sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. 'Gods, girl, is this an inquisition?

'You said you wanted me to talk.'

'Ay, well, that's enough,' said the Hound, suddenly irritable. 'Sleep.'

Sansa sighed, deeply. She _was_ exhausted, by the riding and lack of food, and by him, as changeable as a northern sky. That moment by the river was long gone. She tucked herself up in her blanket and cloak as best she could, rolling over to remove a stone that was digging into her back, and tilting back to face the fire. The warmth on her face slowed her breathing, and brought her dreams.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sansa woke up with her teeth chattering. The fire was a mass of black, withered sticks. Opposite, there was a bundle of blanket and dark cloak where the Hound had slept. She sat up quickly, and looked around. The horses were both there, lying down, their tails switching. He couldn't have gone far. She stood up, rubbing her numb legs and arms. The cold was in the marrow of her bones. It almost burnt. She had dreamt of Lady and Nymeria, padding side by side through a silent, snow-laden forest, ravens in their mouths. The ravens were squawking 'stop! STOP!' at her in wizened voices like Old Nan's, even as the wolves crunched their bones. She shuddered at the memory, stamping her feet on the hard ground, and jumping up and down to try and pound her toes back into life.

'Someone needs a dancing master.' The Hound was walking up from behind her, with two hares slung over his good shoulder.

Sansa stopped and eyed them slightly queasily. 'Where did you get those?'

He looked at her nonchalantly. 'Magic.' She put her hands on her hips. 'I'll show you next time,' he said with half a grin, and waggled one of them at her. 'Want to break your fast?'

Sansa shook her head hurriedly. 'I'm not hungry.'

The Hound slung them both into his saddlebag, guffawing. 'You will be.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Great. This was the sort of life Arya would thrive off. Trapping animals, sleeping in ditches, getting her hair and her skin and her face filthy and not caring. More than that: _loving_ being filthy and acting like a boy. Sansa spent the morning's journey, her stomach grumbling all the while, dreaming of a hot bath filled by Shae, steaming with lavender oil, slick curves on the surface of the water. As she imagined sinking down, dousing her head, something caught her eye in the bushes.

She halted her mare and slid off. Blackberries. Brambles full of blackberries. There were only clumps of red, unripe ones at the front, but glisteningly dark ones were nestled in amongst the bracken. She stretched onto her tiptoes, hanging onto a branch, and plucked one off. It came easily, and she popped it into her mouth, closing her eyes at the little burst of intense, sweet-sharp flavour on her tongue. She began to pick.

The Hound had gone on ahead, and finally trotted Stranger back to see what she was doing. Sansa turned round to him, holding the skirt of her dress in front of her in a well. It was brimming with blackberries. He took her in, twitching a smile. Her hands were covered in fine scratches, threads at the front of her dress had snagged here and there on the bramble thorns, and she'd stuffed herself so full of berries she felt happily sick.

She staggered over to him, holding her skirt out. 'Where can I put these?'

He felt behind him for his saddlebag, pulled out a small sack and passed it down to her so that she could tip them in. He was about to fasten it behind him when she put her hand on Stranger's lower neck.

'Wait – '. He looked down at her questioningly. 'You have to try some.'

He brought the sack round to his lap and grabbed a squashy handful, whilst Sansa held Stranger's reins. He tipped the lot into his mouth in one go, and crunched.

'Good?' She patted Stranger.

He nodded his approval begrudgingly. She grinned up at him, and he looked at her with amusement, still chewing. Suddenly, he leant down to her, put the thumb of his bandaged hand to the corner of her mouth and gently dabbed it before she knew what was happening.

'You've blackberries on you.' He winched himself back up, and Sansa let the horse's reins fall. He moved away, and she licked her own thumb and wiped the corner of her mouth. She looked at the purple stain, and then at the Hound as he rode slowly away.


	6. Chapter 6

Sansa watched the Hound and Stranger ahead of her as he ducked under low boughs in the thick wood. She seemed to exasperate him beyond measure, yet there were glimmers of a different side to him. Touching her mouth back there like that; he had done it with something approaching tenderness. Like he'd done on the bridge at King's Landing after Ser Meryn had hit her, when she'd thought about killing Joffrey. He'd made her see that she had to play a different game. Or when he'd given her his Kingsguard cloak in the throne room. He had always been looking out for her, though she'd perhaps not always realised it.

They picked up a rugged path, freshly grooved with the imprint of cart wheels.

'We might have company.' The Hound nodded ahead of him.

Sansa followed his eyes. Up on the brow of the small hill ahead of them was a horse and cart, heading in the same direction. He picked up the pace. As they got nearer to him, she could see that the cart was filled with barrels.

The Hound shifted his sword belt around so that the scabbard was near his hand. 'It's my lucky day.'

'What are you doing? Why do you need that?'

'I'm having some wine off him,' he said.

'You can't just _steal_ it.'

'I can.'

'But why? It's not yours to take'.

The Hound craned his neck round to look at her. 'Gods girl, what are you, my bloody conscience? I mean to have some. My wineskin is bone dry, this - ' he jerked his head down at his shoulder - 'and _this_ - ' he jabbed his hand at her accusatorily – 'need dulling, and I need something to get me through the nights while you're tweeting in my ear.'

He clicked his tongue at Stranger, who cantered on. Sansa, infuriated, spurred her mare on after him.

He was almost on the horse and cart when she caught up. The wineseller was a large man, sweating profusely. He pulled up, his horse neighing, and looked round nervously at the Hound. Sansa remembered how fearsome he could look to a stranger, especially when on his huge destrier. He towered over the man, and his burns raged in the sunlight.

'How goes it, ser?' she heard the cart-driver ask as he squinted up at him.

The Hound was eyeing his barrels. 'What have you got in there?'

'Ambers, from Pentos, since you ask.'

The Hound sniffed, looking a little disappointed. 'Where are you headed?'

'Down to the Reach, if I ever make it. Trying to avoid the city.' He seemed to be gaining confidence. 'Have you come from there?'

The Hound slid off Stranger, his hand hovering near his sword. Sansa hastily spurred her mare on the last few paces.

'Good day, ser,' she said as brightly as she could.

The man's eyes swivelled round to her. 'And to you, good lady.' He looked her up and down. 'You're a pretty one'.

The Hound's fingers closed around the sword's handle. 'She'll not look so pretty when I've taken both your eyes out.'

The man gulped, startled. 'N – no, no ser, I meant no offence.'You don't see many ladies as fine as this out on this road, is all I meant -' The Hound narrowed his eyes. 'By which I mean to say – I don't want any trouble, ser - '

'Can we buy some wine?' Sansa interrupted. The Hound looked up at her. 'Will you let us fill our wineskins? We have coin.' She glared down at him. 'Don't we?'

He clenched his jaw, then gave the faintest roll of his eyes and reached for the coin bag on his belt. 'Ay.'

S*S*S*S*S*S

With the cart rattling off behind them, and the wineseller still shouting his relieved good days to their backs, the Hound unpopped a cork with his teeth and began to drink. After the first swallow he grimaced, as if he was going to spit it out. Then he took several hearty gulps, and wiped his mouth with a deep sigh. 'Well, you're nothing but trouble.'

Sansa shook her head at him from her mare, wonderingly. 'You don't have to go around killing people all the time, you know. For _wine_. There are such things as being kind and polite.'

'Ay, and we'll see how far your damned pleases and thank yous get you when we bump into some Lannister freeriders.' He looked at his wineskin, and thrust it up at her.

She ignored it. 'Why did you come for me, if you knew I'd be so much trouble?'

The Hound sighed, packing his skins into his saddlebag. 'I don't like bullies.' Sansa stifled a laugh, but he caught it. He'd almost grinned back, but then grew serious. 'If we'd have won, and Joffrey remained king…' He looked at her penetratingly. 'I didn't like to think of you there, without - ' he turned back to his horse – 'me to keep an eye on you.'

'What would he have done?' Sansa asked, as he mounted Stranger.

'You don't want to know.'

She did, and she didn't. 'Did he - speak of me to you?'

He didn't look at her as he spoke. 'Trust me. I spent all my hours as his shadow. I saw all too well what sort of past-times pleased that boy. Things would have gotten a lot worse without me around. Come on.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

It had almost grown dark by the time they found a brackish stream to settle down beside for their camp. As Sansa returned with firewood, The Hound held up one of the hares that had hung down headfirst from Stranger's saddle for most of the day. 'Time for one of these. I'll show you how to skin it.'

She shifted from foot to foot. 'Do I have to?'

'Ay. If you're going to eat it, you should learn.'

'Maybe I won't eat it then.' She looked at him unconfidently.

'And what else are you going to dine upon this evening, my lady?' He gave her a wry glance. 'Roast duck and figs? Almond cakes? Come on. Come and watch.'

The Hound gestured to the ground next to him. Sansa knew that she had little choice. She was starving. Folding her blanket up, she sat neatly on top of it, not far from his shoulder.

He pulled out her dagger from his belt and waved it at her. 'Next time you see that maid of yours, you can tell her this got hares _and_ hounds.'

Guffawing to himself, he made a little slit in the belly of the animal, drawing the dagger all the way round its middle. Sansa felt like she might throw up at any moment, but steeled herself to watch, trying to look nonchalant. She'd seen her father's head on a spike. She could watch this.

The Hound began to roll the fur off the back legs, revealing the marbled pink and grey flesh. He was doing most of the work with his good arm, but still moved deftly. He chopped off its head and held it by the back legs, letting the blood flow out onto the ground. She closed her eyes then, and opened them to the sickening crunch of the hare's feet as he snapped them off, as easy as breaking twigs. Scoring the dagger down the ribcage, he put the glistening blade between his teeth to free both hands to pull at the guts, which slithered out, gleaming and brown. He pulled out the heart and lungs, giving them a good squeeze, the blood seeping down into the mud, and finally held up the hare's lean, stricken body proudly.

The Hound caught Sansa looking queasy, and grinned. 'Let's eat.'

By the time they'd cooked and eaten the hare, Sansa picking carefully at the meat he'd given her, the Hound was drunk. He'd been drinking since he bought that wine, even though he didn't like the taste that much, and glowering more with every swig. It made her want to shrink away from him. She picked herself up to ready herself for sleeping, and remembered her bundle. She brought it back to the fire. It was beginning to die down, and the Hound was poking it with his feet, trying to get it going again.

Sansa spread out her bundle on the ground in front of her and picked up her jewels, one by one. The direwolf charm, her grandmother's, given to her on her eleventh name day. She'd never liked their sigil when she was younger, it was too rough, too wild – she'd always wanted a golden rose like the Tyrells, or the sun and spear of the Martells - but after they'd been given the wolf puppies, she'd grown to love it. She turned the heavy silver charm over in her palm and placed it carefully down again. She held up the filigree gold necklace that Joffrey had given her, on the day that he'd kissed her. Her only kiss. She'd sworn that he'd tasted of rosewater, had brought her fingers up to her lips for the rest of the day. For the rest of the _week_. Gods, how stupid and green she'd been, how simpering and willing to please.

Finally, she picked up her doll, the present from Father. She could picture the hurt in his eyes when she'd got up from the table after he had given it to her, like an old dog whose master wasn't taking it out with him. She'd been so unkind then, blinded by the glamour of the castle, wanting nothing more than to be seen as a proper lady. She held it above her lap and gazed at it, feeling her throat thicken.

'Aren't you a bit old for one of those?' The Hound was looking over the fire at her, his arms folded, amused.

She looked at him impassively, but couldn't keep the sadness out of her voice. 'Father gave it to me. He was trying to be kind, after what happened with Joffrey and Lady, that's all.'

'Ay, well he misjudged a lot of things, didn't he?' he said with offhand spite, picking up a large stick and poking the fire.

Sansa looked up at him furiously, but didn't give him the satisfaction of a retort. He could be so cruel. It was maddening. She watched him rear back slightly as a flame flared up, quickly brushing his hair out of his face. He added more sticks carefully and sat back on his haunches.

'I know about your face,' she said, quietly.

There was a pause. 'Oh, you do, do you?' His face was half in shadow.

'Yes.'

The Hound's eyes were dark. 'Go on, then.'

Sansa was feeling less bold by the second. 'You were a boy and had taken the Mounta – your brother's wooden toy, so he - held you in the fire'.

He stared fiercely into the growing flames. 'Who told you that?'

'Littlefinger. I mean, Ser Baelish. At the tourney.'

'And who did _you_ tell?' asked the Hound, still not looking at her, his voice now edged with menace.

'No one! I mean, Ayra was there when he told me, and she probably heard, but I didn't tell anyone. Why would I?'

The Hound breathed out, hard, his face unreadable.

'Why does it matter?'

He suddenly leant towards her, half-snarling. 'Why does it matter? I'm the _Hound_. People are afraid of me because they think _this -_' he jabbed a finger towards his face - 'is a battle scar, not the mark of a whimpering little boy. If they knew, I'd be a laughing stock'.

Sansa realised that she wasn't afraid of him anymore, and never would be. 'No one knows. No one else. I promise.' She looked at him unflinchingly. 'What he did to you -' The Hound's shoulders lowered, and he looked wounded. 'He… he is the cruellest man I've ever heard of -'

She stopped, thinking of Joffrey. But even Joffrey wouldn't do that to his own kin, to Tommen, or Myrcella.

The Hound took a long breath in, his chest expanding slowly, and turned to face the fire again, the light flickering on his face. 'Once I get you back home, I'll kill him,' he said to the fire.

Sansa couldn't find a reply. She realised that this was something he'd intended to do for many years, waiting for the right time. He looked fiercely pensive, and suddenly more human, than she'd seen him before. Those burns had been his brother's curse on him - he'd never be rid of them, but he could be rid of the man who'd given them to him. She watched the rough spit he'd made blacken above the fire.

'Are you – burnt all over?' she asked, immediately wishing that she hadn't.

The Hound leaned over, vicious. 'Want to see?'

Sansa felt her neck flush but held his eyes resolutely for a moment, enough to see them cloud slightly with guilt, before she turned her face away. 'You don't need to be so horrible.'

He was silent. She knew he couldn't say sorry. He was too proud. It was ridiculous.

'You shouldn't drink so much wine. It's the wine that makes you say such horrible things, like killing is the sweetest thing, or that you want me to sing, or – or -' She sighed, and looked up at him angrily. She didn't care if he was cruel to her again. She would say her piece.

It came out in a rush. 'And don't say it's because you're the Hound, because that's no excuse. You don't have to be like that to me. Not anymore. It's just - _me_. Why would you want me to be frightened of you when you wanted to rescue me? It doesn't make sense. You don't need to punish me. I know you think I'm just a stupid little girl, but I'm trying to be better, and I'm so grateful to you for getting me away from there, I really am. Just - stop being so mean.'

She picked herself up, with her doll, moving as far away from him as she could whilst still being in the firelight, and lay down with her back to him. She couldn't believe that she was still wearing the same dress that she had been in for two days and nights. She felt filthy, hungry, and cold, even with the fire. She was furious at the tears that pricked her eyes as she squeezed them shut. Gods, she wished she was at Winterfell, with her mother, and the Maester, and Old Nan, and her brothers, and Arya. She missed Arya so much. She hugged her doll to her chest, its straw edges poking into her skin.

'Sansa.'

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. It was the first time she'd ever heard him use her name. He said it so quietly from over at the other side of the fire that she thought maybe she'd imagined it. She opened her eyes, holding her breath, lying still.

'Gregor. It was my face. He just held my face down.'

She waited for more, but none came. She closed her eyes.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

They didn't speak anymore of his face, or his brother. They began another day of of riding, stopping at streams to fill their skins and feed the horses, and resting. Sansa was trying to get used to feeling constantly filthy, though was horrified at the tangled mess her hair seemed to have become, and ran her fingers through it when ever she had the chance. Her thighs were raging less from the constant bump of the saddle on her mare, who she'd named Sorrel. Probably out of sheer hunger.

She looked for food everywhere, her sense of smell sharpened, keenly eyeing the dark corners of bushes, or looking over her head. Clumps of pungent wild garlic, small, bitter apples as pink as scrubbed cheeks, even some mushrooms. He never said anything, just watching her as she filled her saddlebag or just ate straight away, apart from to warn her off the tiny hard berries, hanging like bright rubies, over their heads.

The next night Sansa stood behind the Hound as he began his work on the fire. 'Ser.' He looked round. 'Will you teach me how to do that?' She gestured to the wood and flint.

He looked at her, half-impressed, but didn't reply. She crouched down next to him, her arms resting on her knees, peering at his pile of tinder and sticks. He tucked some of his hair behind his good ear, and showed her the ball of moss and loose shreds of dry bark that acted as tinder, and the dry leaves laid on top. He used her dagger to dig a hole in a flat piece of wood, and to sharpen the drill stick and the flat, rough bit of bark underneath.

After many whittles, and more creative curses than Sansa had ever heard from him before, the tinder caught the first few sparks, and they laid small sticks on it. The Hound sat back quickly, and Sansa continued adding sticks.

'I'll do it tomorrow then,' she said.

He looked at her with sceptical amusement. 'Will you now?'

She nodded. 'Then you don't have to.'

He suddenly flushed, and looked down at the ground angrily. 'There's no need for that.'

'I want to,' she said. 'I want to try.'

He didn't protest further. They ate the second hare, and he produced a tiny black pot she didn't know he had so that she could boil her mushrooms. Little was said, but he seemed to be drinking his wine more slowly.

In the middle of the night, Sansa opened her eyes with a start. There was a rumbling in the distance – she couldn't tell how far away. Horses? Carts? Soldiers? She rolled onto her back and sat up on her elbows, listening intently.

'It's thunder.' He spoke quietly. She looked over, and could just make out his form – sitting up, a large mound in a blanket, on the other side of the smouldering fire. 'Go back to sleep.'

Sansa shivered, and wrapped her blanket and cloak more tightly round her, balling her fists up under her armpits. The thunder continued to grumble distantly, though the rain never came.

Men of the Night's Watch were trudging through snows so thick it came up to their thighs. Joffrey led them, his golden hair gleaming under a hood of black fur. Suddenly she was there in front of them, barefoot in the snow, wearing a violet summer dress, and frozen to the spot as the line of men approached. Joffrey pointed at her, and suddenly men were on top of her, pushing her over, and she couldn't even scream. Sansa awoke, trying to gasp, but couldn't. A large hand was clamped over her mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

The bandaged hand covered most of her cheek as well as her mouth and chin. Sansa grabbed it. The Hound was kneeling over her, holding a finger to his lips, and then pointing in mid-air beyond her, above the dell in which they'd made their camp. She breathed in through her nose, trying to calm herself, and listened. Very faintly, under the sound of her heart thudding, she could hear voices, several. Men's voices.

Straining harder, she thought she could hear the dull clump of horses' hooves, and laughter. The Hound lifted his eyes from hers and stared at a patch of leaves next to them both, his body utterly tense and alert, his free hand moving towards his sword, which glinted on the ground beside them. Sansa tried not to breathe. As the sounds got closer, she removed his hand from her mouth but clutched it tightly, hovering just over her face, exhaling through her mouth as noiselessly as possible. He looked back at her and she slid her eyes towards the horses, who were lying down, still sleeping, behind some trees. He followed her look and closed his eyes for a moment, understanding. They mustn't wake up.

Their camp was some distance from the scrubby path they'd left the night before. The voices and sounds of the horses got louder, enough for them to hear one animal harrumph. Sorrell twitched her tail. Raucous laughter and shouting could be heard, indistinct words. It finally began to fade. Sansa took a deep, long breath, her ribs pressing against her dress. The Hound looked down at the hand she was holding. She was gripping him right where she'd wounded him. And his thumb was closed gently around her fingers. She released it quickly. He flexed his fingers slightly and sat back, looking at her, still listening.

'Who do you think they were?' she asked, very quietly.

He shook his head, and spoke almost under his breath. 'No loyal band, by the sounds of things. Too carefree. But whether they were Lannisters or your brother's lot, or a whole other load of bannermen in between, who's to say.'

'How many, do you think?' Sansa put her fingers in her eyes, blinking herself properly awake.

'Maybe ten.'

She wondered what would have happened if the men had stumbled upon them. Could he have protected her, and himself? He _was_ wounded, however much he tried to ignore it.

He seemed to read her thoughts. 'Five I could take. Ten's asking a bit much, even for me.' He got up carefully, with a rueful grin, and turned to go, but stopped, and turned back. He put his good hand down towards her. 'I'm sorry about - waking you like that'.

'I was dreaming,' said Sansa, in a small, slightly broken voice.

'I know,' he said. 'You're always having bad dreams.' She took his hand and he pulled her up as if she was as light as a cloak, and dropped her hand.

They saw no one else that day. They passed through woods of small, crook-backed trees, and paths that were lined with foxgloves and hawthorn bushes. They rode onto open fields and the Hound swung off his horse and strode away with his bow and arrow, certain he'd seen quail. He came back with two limp necks hooked over his fingers to find Sansa pulling up mint by the stalks. She had chewed them all afternoon, and fed them to Sorrel. He told her that they were mad, the pair of them.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

That evening, under a half-lidded moon bearded with wisps of cloud, the Hound clapped his hands and rubbed them together.

'Right then,' he grinned. 'Let's see you make this fire.'

Sansa had always loved to learn – she'd easily been Septa Mordane's favourite when she was younger, much to Arya's chagrin, and she'd watched his fire-making carefully. She was determined to prove herself. She collected all the tools that she needed as he made a show of seating himself comfortably, and then stood over him, putting her palm out. He looked at her questioningly.

'I need my dagger.' He sat back and folded his arms, squinting up at her, a half-smile on his face. She sighed. 'Look, I'm really sorry that I – attacked you. Truly. I promise I won't do it again.'

'A promise is a solemn thing.' He feigned a sombre look. 'You can't go back on it'.

Sansa spoke as if she was reciting a list of sigils. '_Please can I have my dagger_.'

With one arm still folded, the Hound whipped out Shae's dagger from his scabbard underneath his elbow as if conjuring it from the air.

'_Thank you_,' she said. She sat back down and began to shave off the top of her whittling stick.

Everything was going well until the final, crucial moment. Sansa simply could not get any sparks to come. She could now see why he would work himself up so much. It was infuriating. She'd spent fifteen minutes twisting frantically away, and there was no sign. And all the while he'd been watching her, then sighing over-heavily, and finally pretending to go to sleep.

'Crone's feet!' She muttered it more loudly than she'd meant to.

The Hound laughed, then, and got up. 'I'll have to teach you some better oaths, and all.'

He came over to her, and knelt down opposite her. 'The angle's not quite right.' He pointed to the hollow on the base wood. He gestured to her to put the stick in place again, and then tilted it slightly further away from her body. 'OK, now,' he nodded. Sansa began to whittle, and whittle. Nothing came. Her cheeks grew hotter. 'Someone's losing her patience.'

'_You_ never have any.' She glared at him.

He exhaled a small laugh, and suddenly cupped his hands over hers, completely enclosing them. 'Just go a bit slower.' He started her off again.

The air suddenly seemed weighted. They were both looking at their hands, and the stick, and the kindling. A spark finally came, and Sansa gave a darting little in-breath, and almost stopped. He kept her hands moving until a few more orange flecks flew, and then quickly removed his palms as she moved the kindling and blew on it.

Finally, tiny plumes of smoke and flame began to flare, and she added small twigs, and then larger sticks onto it. The fire took. Sansa sat back on her knees, her face lit up by the small flames, beaming. She tilted her eyes up to the Hound, who had moved back as the fire grew; she caught a look on his face that was something like benevolent pride, before he masked it with one of his wry grins. 'Your first fire.'

Sansa swore that the quails tasted all the better for having crackled on top of _her_ fire. She was ravenous, and found herself carefully inspecting the bird, tearing it apart to find all last scraps of the dark, fleshy meat. Her fingers were covered in grease and she began licking the tips, one by one. The Hound was picking at his teeth with a fine bone and eyeing her with amusement.

She frowned, and wiped her hands on her skirts. '_Please_ don't laugh at me.' He raised his eyebrows and shook his head, as if to say he was doing no such thing. He was always laughing at her. She swore that he enjoyed seeing her out here, living like a wildling. 'Do you – do you think we might stop at an inn sometime… soon?'

He took the bone out his mouth and used his little fingernail instead. 'Getting tired of the woods, are we?'

'You can't expect me to _like_ it out here. It's just – don't you want to have _real_ food, and a _proper_ bed?' she said, making sure that she didn't just complain about her own discomfort.

'I bet your brother's army are thinking just the same, and they've been on the road for a lot longer than you.'

Sansa threw her bones into the fire. 'They have _tents_. And _cooks_.'

The Hound grinned and took his finger out of his mouth. 'We're still in the south. It's not just you that I'm worried about being recognised. There are a few people who'd be happy to sling a hood over me and get me back to King's Landing for a ransom. We're both prizes, though I'll not deny that you're the prettier one. Once we get past the Twins, I promise you an inn.'

Sansa could see that he was talking some sense, as much as she hated to hear it. 'What will you do – after Winterfell?'

The Hound gazed into the fire and picked up his wineskin. 'Maybe I'll take a look at that Wall. Maybe I'll go over it. Or maybe I'll board a ship and head somewhere a lot, lot warmer, with vineyards and spices and maidens wearing not very much.' Sansa tried not to blush. He gulped some wine. 'I'll follow my nose.' He stretched and gave a big, bearish groan, and fetched the blankets from the horses, throwing one at her unceremoniously. 'Goodnight.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

In the morning, as they got their horses up and watered, the Hound coughed behind Sansa to get her attention. She turned around to find him holding her dagger on his palm out to her. 'Reckon you've earned this back.'

He trusted her. She moved to take it from him, and he whipped his hand back, fixing her with a teasingly searching look. She sighed, holding her hand out, her head to her side. Everything was such a game to him. He placed it in her hand. 'Thank you, ser,' she said.

'Look.' He was suddenly brusque, the game over. 'Stop with the _sers_. You know I hate it'.

She dropped her shoulders as if she was being ticked off by Septa Mordane. 'I know you didn't want to be a knight, but - what else am I supposed to call you? I'm not calling you 'Hound''.

He shrugged. 'Well, that's my name. There's no shame in it.'

'There _is_. _He_ called you that, and worse. How can you like that name? It – it degrades you.'

He leant towards her, assuming a fearsome look. 'It puts the fear of the Gods in people.'

Sansa hugged her arms to her chest, unimpressed. 'You're not a dog, you're a man. With a _name_.'

He sighed raggedly, scratching his forehead. 'Sandor, then.'

Sansa sat back, satisfied. 'Thank you.' She swore that she saw the faintest hint of a blush under his glowering expression.

Sansa handed him Sorrel's reins and went to her bundle, pulling out the strap that Shae had given her. She sat down on the nearest rock and pulled her skirts up to just below the knee, placing the dagger on the ground by her foot. Winding the strap around her ankle as Shae had done, with the little sheath for the dagger on her outer ankle, she picked up the blade and slid it into place. She looked up with a grin, and caught him, just for a fleeting moment, looking fixedly at her lower leg.

Her pale calf, with fine golden hairs, probably the brightest thing for miles around, and him, staring at it. In a second, she had swiftly thrown her skirts back down to her bootstraps, and he'd lost that look, and was shifting Stranger's saddle, unnecessarily. But she didn't forget it.


	8. Chapter 8

They began to fall into a routine. She would see to brushing the horses down, gather berries and firewood, and make the fires. He would disappear and come back with birds, or a hare, and scout ahead at crossings. They stopped at rivers, or sometimes something not much more than a trickle, to fill their waterskins and roughly wash, though Sansa would just splash her face and neck. She smelt like a farmgirl. Like a farm _animal_. And they called each other, just occasionally, and only if necessary, by name. He was right - 'the Hound' did instil fear in people, including her. Thinking of him as Sandor erased what little trepidation she had left of him, and his sparing use of her name felt like he didn't just see her as a flighty, hopeless girl.

As they trotted through a thick wood, picking their way over tree roots as coiled as serpents, Sandor suddenly pulled Stranger up. There were three figures ahead, though there were no flags or horses to be seen. He moved on towards them, Sansa following. The three leapt up as they approached, looking panicked.

There was a man, perhaps fifty or so, a woman who might have been his daughter, and a young girl of about six, who the woman clutched to her. Their clothes were dull-coloured and patched, and all looked desperately thin, pinched and terrified.

'Good – good day to you both,' said the man, a voice thin as strained tea.

The woman pulled the girl aside to let them pass, and they bowed their heads. Sandor didn't reply, scowling down at them and leading Stranger past. As Sansa rode alongside the trio, she saw the little girl raise her eyes up to look at her from underneath her ragged fringe. Her eyes were tired and hollow, but inquisitive.

Sansa tugged on Sorrel's reins and looked down at them. 'Where are you going?'

The man took a step forward. 'Just looking for somewhere safe and quiet my lady, to find work and bring up this little one.'

The woman put her hand on the girl's tangled curls. Sandor had stopped Stranger a few paces on and had turned him so that they were sidelong on the path.

'And where have you come from?' Sansa asked.

The woman raised her head. There was a flicker of curiosity in her eyes, before she glanced down again. 'King's –'

Sandor had come back towards the group, his face impassive. Sansa saw the man take in his armour and the burnt side of his face with a startled look, nudging the woman to stop.

'- Landing.' She glared at him, surprised, too late.

'How've you got up here so quickly without horses, then?' said Sandor, in almost a growl.

The man bowed his head, quite fear-stricken.

'You may speak freely,' said Sansa.

He looked hesitantly at Sandor. 'We – had a cart to take us much of the way, ser, but it was attacked by brigands, and we were lucky to get away.'

'Did you leave on the night of the battle?' asked Sansa.

'Ay, my lady. The Old Gate was opened and some escaped, though many were hunted down by the City Watch. We – we hid under a moving cart.'

'Do you know what happened?' He looked up at her, puzzled. 'Who won?'

The man shook his head blankly. It didn't seem to matter to him. 'No, my lady.'

Sandor wheeled Stranger round to Sansa, glaring at her impatiently. She felt resolute. 'Are you hungry?' she said to the deserters.

The little girl raised her head then, for the first time, her eyes round and hopeful. The man glanced at Sandor. 'Don't trouble yourselves, we'll be right.'

Sansa swung off Sorrel and walked over to Sandor. She loosened the dead hare that was hanging by its neck at the back of Stranger's saddle and brought it back to the trio, feeling Sandor's eyes burning into her back. 'Have this for today, at least,' she said, holding it out.

The woman took it from her, looking at Sansa gratefully. 'All our thanks, my lady.'

Sansa smiled at them, and mounted her mare again. As she went to move off, the woman stepped up to her and put her hand on Sorrel's neck. 'My lady – ' Sansa stopped and looked down at her. The woman eyed her keenly as if to say that she could answer her freely, and kept her voice low. 'Are you quite well, my lady?'

Sansa looked at Sandor, then back at her. 'Yes. I am well. Thank you.'

The woman removed her hand from Sorrel, nodding her understanding. 'Gods go with you, then.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sansa turned her head back to the deserters. The trio were standing in a line, motionless, watching them disappear. She spurred Sorrel on to ride abreast of Sandor, who was staring fixedly ahead. 'Do you they'll be alright out here?'

He was rigid. 'Ay, you'll have given them all of an extra day.'

'They were _hungry._'

'And now_ you'll_ be hungry.' He still didn't look at her. She was silent. 'You'd better feel like hunting today.' Sansa looked across at him, not understanding. He glanced at her impassively, spurring Stranger on. 'I'm not spending my time catching game only for you to give our dinner away to the first beggars you see'.

She tried to keep up. 'They were from King's Landing. They're your people.'

'Not _my_ people.' He began to outride her. 'Nor yours'.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sometime later, as they rode abreast of a sloping, lumpen field, Sandor stopped, pointing to the brow of the hill. 'There's your quarry.'

Sansa squinted up into the sun's glare, following his hand. She could see rabbits scattered about, still or lolloping lazily between mounds of scrubby grass. Sandor slid off Stranger and took Sorrel's reins, waiting for Sansa to dismount.

'Rabbits?' She'd always loved watching rabbits up on the moors near Winterfell, and rarely ate them.

'Rabbits.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sansa had never touched a bow and arrow, and told him so, several times, as she got down. Her brothers had been near-addicted to archery, from Robb down even to Rickon – Father had had a miniature bow made especially for him. And of course Arya would take a shot whenever she could, and practised out in the weirwood when she thought no one was looking.

Sandor pretended not to hear, and handed her his bow.

She tilted it warily, away from her body. 'You know I won't be able to do it.'

Sandor grinned, holding three arrows bunched up in his fist at her. 'You'll make do.' He led her to some ash trees at the bottom corner of the field, and showed her the small, flat blades. 'Blunts. Good for killing birds, but they'll do for these 'uns too.'

'I really don't think this is going to work.'

'Call it target practice, then. You've got three chances.' He fitted her an arrow. 'Don't do anything yet. Have a look up there and pick your shot.'

Sansa peered up at the small, hunched silhouettes. There were four rabbits in a group lower down in the field. She brought the bow up and pulled the arrow back. There was so much tension in the hide string that her arm shook, and the shaft trembled uncontrollably. She lowered the bow, her cheeks reddening. 'I'm not strong enough.'

'Yes, you are. Don't give up before you've started. Go on'.

She pulled the bow up again, more forcefully, and drew the string back until that the fletchling was touching her cheek. With an eye closed, squinting at the trio of rabbits, she loosed the arrow.

It landed some pace short of them, collapsing into the grass. A flock of pigeons, rock-grey with pink flashes, broke into the sky. The rabbits didn't even notice. Sansa's face fell. Sandor tried not to grin, and fitted her another arrow. She pulled it up and released it, too quickly. It soared further this time, but metres wide of any rabbits. The animals loped slightly away from where it had fallen, untroubled.

Sandor fitted her final arrow. She didn't look at him, furious and embarrassed. He was making a fool of her.

'I can't do it.' Her throat felt as taut as the bowstring.

'Take your time.' He moved behind her and spoke in a low, casual voice. 'Get your prey in sight first. Try one of them right at the top of the hill. They're not moving.' Sansa brought her arrow up, the nock at her cheekbone. 'Bring your arm up so that it's level with your arrow.' He put his hand under the tip of her elbow and gently tilted it.

Sansa took a breath in. With him holding her there, she was able to keep the bowstring tight without shaking, and let it fly. It arced over the field and fell over the line of the horizon, missing her rabbit. She lowered her bow. 'Happy now?'

'It was a good first try.' He took the bow off her and moved past her into the field, and then turned, walking backwards. 'Good for those rabbits anyway.' He grinned and turned back to collect the arrows.

Sansa kicked the smooth roots of the ash trees with her boot, hard enough to numb her toes. She'd mastered the fire well enough, but she couldn't turn into a head archer in a heartbeat. Sandor was just punishing her again, for doing an act of kindness he disapproved of. He had to humiliate her - he just couldn't help himself.

'Sansa!'

She turned back round to the field to see him, a big silhouette against the sun, which glinted off his armour. Sandor was tramping back down the field towards her, holding two arrows in one hand, and a limp rabbit in the other. He held it up to her. It must have been caught by that third arrow, unseen by them over the brow of the hill. She grinned.


	9. Chapter 9

By the light of the fire that Sansa made that night, Sandor taught her how to skin it. She didn't argue this time. She was determined to rise to each challenge he gave her, just to wipe those cursed sly grins off his face. Using Shae's dagger, he instructed her to slice the fur up the back of both legs. She pulled the first bit of hide away, towards the rabbit's little tufted tail. She gritted her teeth as she cut through the tailbone, which crunched alarmingly. She was surprised at how easily the hide pulled off over the animal's middle, and how little blood there was. Bile started to rise in her throat as she worked fingers under the skin of the front legs, turning it inside out, revealing the stretched, mottled flesh. It looked a little like Sandor's cheek, she thought, wickedly.

She couldn't bring herself to sever the head. 'You do it.' She foisted the dagger on him.

He was about to refuse, when something made him realise why she was insisting, and he took the knife from her and swiftly chopped it off. 'I'll do the rest. Go and get some water.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

They sat, gnawing at her rabbit over the fire. Sansa was eating a leg, picking at the meat.

'How does it taste?' he asked.

'It needs apricots. And sauce. And vegetables. And salt.'

He smiled dryly at her. 'I mean, how does it taste, being your first game?'

She fixed her teeth around a bone. 'Good.'

'That was some beginner's luck,' he said, throwing a sinew into the fire.

'It was no such thing. I knew there were rabbits over the hill. It's a sixth sense I have. A special Stark gift. You couldn't possibly understand.' He breathed a laugh. 'You've probably been using a bow and arrow since you were _five'_.

'Ay.' He tipped his head down to his injured shoulder. 'But I have been using my other arm.'

Sansa glared at him, gleefully furious. 'You're just showing off.'

'And you're turning into a proper little she-wolf.'

Sansa shrugged at him as impassively as she could. She couldn't help feeling secretly pleased. He meant it as an accolade, and though a week ago she would have done anything but, she took it as one.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

As they finished, Sandor threw something over the fire at her. She flinched slightly at the thing that had fallen by her feet, and picked it up. He nodded at it. 'That's for luck.' It was the rabbit's tail, cleaned of blood; a soft, white ball like a dandelion weed.

'You have it.' Sansa flung it back and it landed in his lap. 'I'm going to get back home. Luck is going to have nothing to do with it. Have it as a present.' She looked down at her fingers, which were greasy with rabbit meat. 'For – for after Winterfell.'

He knew what she meant. 'Not sure I want it for then, either.'

She tried to speak delicately, picturing Gregor towering over him at the tourney. 'He's a lot bigger than you.'

'He's a lot bigger than everyone. But he's just one man, and one man can be killed.'

'He's probably one of the hardest men to kill, though, isn't he?' she asked, as lightly as she could.

'Ay, well, there have been a lot of strange deaths in my family. I'll make sure this one isn't the most surprising.'

'What do you mean?'

There was a long pause. 'My…' he paused again, and seemed to be deciding whether to continue or not. He breathed in. 'I had a sister, once.' He swallowed. 'She died.'

Sansa hardly dared move. 'What happened?'

He seemed to become heavy, so heavy that his words slowed, and each one was uttered as if it were a large stone being lowered to the ground. 'It's said she - drowned.'

'But you think… otherwise?'

Sandor looked deeply into the fire. 'I know so, though I can't prove it. She was always careful near the water. There was a big lake nearby. She didn't swim in it, though my brother said that she must have done, this time.'

The flames crackled. She looked at him gently, desperate to prompt him further. 'You said – deaths. Was there more than one?'

Sparks were in his eyes, like flints taking. He was grinding his teeth slightly. 'We had servants who would – well, one day they'd be there, the next not, and no one would speak of it. I know one kitchenmaid who might've, had her tongue not been bitten out. And my father.'

Sansa glanced at him, not believing that there could be more. He looked at her as he spoke, bitterness creeping into his voice. 'Well, hunting is treacherous, it seems, for kings and bannermen alike, even when you've weapons, and dogs and squires at your heels.'

Sansa was horrified. She drew her knees up to her chin, trying to digest his words.

'Let's not speak of it,' Sandor said, seeing how troubled she was. He picked up the rabbit's tail and jiggled it at her. 'Maybe I'll take it, just in case.'

She smiled then. 'You'll be drowning in lucky charms soon enough.' He looked at her quizzically and she raised her eyebrows, sitting back casually. 'From all the rabbits I'm going to shoot for us.'

He barked a sudden laugh and looked at her. His gaze suddenly grew more intense.

She fidgeted under it. 'What?'

He leaned back with a half-smile. 'You're getting freckles.'

She felt herself blush and looked at the fire. 'I'm – not supposed to stay in the sun too long.'

They were silent for a while. Sansa was trying to take in what he'd told her. Being brought up in the shadow of such a brother. She eyed him sidelong, looking at the long clumps of hair that hung down from the burnt side of his head. He'd been disfigured so horribly, and then to lose a sister, and a father. He had been left with no one but the monster. She wondered if he'd had any happiness in his life at all, any kindness or love shown towards him.

Sandor caught her scrutinising him. 'What is it?'

She came out with it. 'Were you ever married?'

Sandor looked panic-stricken at the question, like one of the birds caught in his hands just before he'd break its throat. 'Gods, girl, do you have to?'

'I just - wondered.' Sansa was secretly gleeful that he was so embarrassed. 'You don't have to answer.'

Sandor scratched his neck. 'Didn't have much time for that, once I was at Casterly Rock. And anyway –' he looked awkward, and fleetingly self-hating. 'I don't think many of the girls were too keen on looking at this.' He gestured vaguely towards the right side of his face.

There was an uncomfortable pause. Why did he think of it as such a burden? 'Everyone has – something –' she struggled to articulate what she meant, desperate not to offend him. He narrowed his eyes at her, a challenge. 'I mean, Tyrion Lannister is – a dwarf, and Ser Illyn – has no tongue, and Ser Varys –'

'I think you'd best stop talking,' he said, drinking some of his wine, though she could see that he was hurt.

'No, I mean –' she took a deep breath, plucking a blade of grass from between her feet. 'My brother, Bran, he fell from a tower and now he can't use his legs. But he's strong, and he'll grow to be a fine man, and be a maester, or a bannerman for Robb. I just mean – you're not the only one. We – everyone has something, an obstacle. It – it doesn't matter.'

'Ay, and what's yours then?' She looked up at him, unsure of what to say. 'Answer me that.' He shook his head, irritated. 'You're so damned perfect.'

It seemed an angry confusion of insult and high compliment. She flushed, her skin prickling. He looked at her for just a moment too long, before turning his face away. Sansa tightened her jaw. 'My obstacle is that I'm a highborn woman. Not a man.'

He raised his eyebrows. 'Ay, that's a hardship, having your hair brushed and your bath drawn and learning to play the fucking harp'.

'You're wrong.' Sansa looked at him defiantly. 'I exist for one purpose. To be married off, to join houses, have sons. Nothing more.' She picked more blades of grass, each one more furiously than the last.

There was a long pause, and Sandor sighed heavily. 'Ay. Well, maybe you're right. We're all born into this world with something to fight against.' He tipped his wineskin over, and when nothing dripped out, sighed again.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

That night was colder than ever. The days might still have a late summer glow, but the nights warned of the approaching winter. Sansa lay looking up at the stars, which seemed to spin and fight for her attention between the dark branches, and watched her cold breath exhale in clouds before vanishing into nothing. The fire gave its last sighs, diminishing to a dull, intermittent glow, as if it was breathing. It was so unnervingly quiet that she couldn't sleep.

He'd called her perfect. He seemed furious about it, but he'd called her perfect. She could not understand what he felt about her. Whether he thought she was a frivolous girl, or a haughty highborn, or – something else. She knew he'd been proud of her these last few days, making fires, using the bow and arrow, skinning rabbits. He'd grown – at least for the most part – more benevolent. And just occasionally, she'd caught him giving her a look that stilled her.

He could still turn on her, but she could see that there was a gentler side to him, underneath it all, and a teasing humour that wasn't as cruel as all that. He'd hardened, in the face of the horrors he'd suffered at home. She'd meant what she said. She saw the potential in him to be better, and braver, given the chance. His face shouldn't stop him, and she was so used to it now that she hardly noticed it. As he talked about his family, he'd seemed to break, and soften just a little more.

Maybe he was the sort of knight you found in real life – not in the songs, where the men were all fey and noble, and the ladies simpering waifs. She stifled a giggle as she imagined a song being written about them, about a burnt, angry bear of a man and a girl with a filthy face and rabbit's bones in her teeth.

Suddenly there was a low rumble and her heart jumped in her chest. For a moment she thought it might be a wolf. Then there was a slower, juddering sound, like an iron chain dragged on gravel, and she realised that it was him, snoring. She went to sleep, shivering, but with a grin on her face.


	10. Chapter 10

Sandor had left her with the horses and taken off with his bow and arrow. There was a smallholding some way off in a valley, little black coils of smoke trailing up from one corner of the roof. Sansa wasn't sure how much more charred meat, feathers or patches of fur still stuck on it, she could take. Or boiled mushrooms, or leaves that she hoped were sage, or borage, and then ate anyway. A hot bath seemed like something she'd only ever dreamt about. She was beginning to feel like they were moving through a half-place, ancient, before humans. That they were the first people to ever see these fields, or these woods with canopies like clasped, worrying hands. Or perhaps it was a place _after_ humans – after everyone had killed each other, and that they were the only ones left.

That night, Sansa sat with a plump little grouse on her lap, as heavy as a sack of grain, and picked the feathers out, one by one, placing them in a neat pile on the ground. She found herself actually half-enjoying it, once she'd gotten over the squeamishness of the little scrape of feather-tip against flesh. A chunk of bread landed on the ground beside her.

She looked up. 'Where did you get that?'

Sandor was already eating his portion. 'That farm.'

She couldn't believe it. He'd refused to let them go there and petition for shelter or food, saying they were still too close to the city. 'You went there _without _me?' He flung a bit of cheese at her. 'Did you buy it?' He winked at her. She sighed. 'You stole from them.'

He looked half-ashamed, just for an instant, and then assumed his usual mock-bravado, speaking through a mouthful of food. 'I'll eat it all if you don't want it.'

She quickly picked up the bread and cheese - a white crust like cottonweed, and thin blue lines veined through it – dusted the soil off it, and started eating. She knew that he was grinning at her.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

'I think it's time I had my favour.'

It was after they'd eaten and she'd been braiding her hair, trying to neaten it up at the sides. She looked up at him, startled.

He held up his scarred hand at her. He'd removed the bandage now, and the wound she'd given him was healing into a fine, dark red crescent. 'This still hurts, you know.'

'I'm sorry,' she said, wondering what he could want. The mood was darker again. Perhaps it was having run out of wine. She felt suddenly apprehensive.

'Don't you want to know, then?' His voice was unreadable.

She swallowed. 'What is it?'

He looked at her intently. 'I want a song.'

Sansa realised that she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled slowly, trying not to let him see her relief, feeling suddenly shy. 'What song?'

'I don't know. Anything you like. Not too many bloody knights and fair maidens.' He tucked his hands into his elbows, looking at her expectantly, and not smiling, though the corners of his eyes were crumpled. She quickly put the thought of a song about the two of them out of her mind.

She was more nervous than she would have imagined. It was unspoken and hanging in the air that when he'd asked her for a song before, she was pushed up against a wall and he was steaming drunk. This was different. She didn't mind. She _would_ sing for him. Sansa got into a kneeling position, facing him, and began. She sang 'The Swan', a ballad about a girl turned into a swan by a jealous boy and then shot by her lover. She looked everywhere but at him, feeling slightly ridiculous at first, with the shadows and silence hanging thickly around them, but she warmed into it. He kept his eyes fixed on her and his arms folded, and remained very still. Her voice trailed off on the last refrain of 'and he drowned in the lake for his darling' as she finally caught his eye. His jaw was hanging slightly open.

Maybe he thought it was stupid. A stupid song. Sansa looked down, blushing. 'It's – a bit silly. Old Nan, our nurse, used to sing it to me. She likes the gloomy ones.' She dared to bring her eyes back up.

He leaned forward slightly. 'I think I like the gloomy ones too, then.'

She gave him a squashed, shy grin, then brightened, sitting back on her heels. 'Now you have to sing something.'

'Ha!' Sandor gave a hearty, dark laugh, the tension broken in an instant. 'I'd sooner cut my own throat.'

'Well, you've got to do something, it's only fair.'

'_You_, young lady, stabbed me through my sword hand with a whore's dagger, so I definitely do not owe you a song. And the only songs I know are not fit for a highborn lady's ears, believe me. Anyway, all the birds will abandon these woods forever in protest if I start crowing.' His shoulders shook at his own joke.

'Well, what else can you do?' she said, not intending to let it go.

He leaned towards her, his eyes keen. 'I was learning how to kill a man in one swordstroke when you were singing songs and embroidering pillows. That's what I do best.'

'Well, you'll have to teach me, then.'

He guffawed. 'Sansa, you were not meant to fight.'

'I was not _meant_ to live in the woods plucking the feathers out of birds, but here I am.' She gave him her best mock-frown.

He laughed again. 'Tomorrow then. Go to sleep.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S*

The next morning, she felt a boot thudding against the sole of one of hers. She rolled over, groaning, pulling the cloak over her face.

Sandor kicked her again. 'Come on, sleeping beauty, do you want to get home or become a child of the forest?'

Sansa kept the cloak over her head. Was it her, or was he getting bolder? She got up slowly, stretching and rubbing each thumb against her knuckles to massage them out of stiffness, glancing at him from under her lashes as he crashed about preparing the horses and shrugging on his armour. She drank some water from a skin and went to mount Sorrel.

Sandor put a hand on the mare's reins. 'Where do you think you're going?' She looked at him sleepily, puzzled. 'You've forgotten your first fighting lesson.'

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Sandor had two swords: his longsword that he kept slung on his back, and a short, single-edged sword scabbarded at his waist.

Sansa eyed the hand and a half-long blade, and gave him a fierce look. 'You're a little bit bigger than me.'

He grinned and handed her the shorter one. 'Ay, I'm still wounded though.'

She eyed him seriously. 'Does it hurt?'

He gave her a craggy smile. 'I've had worse.' The sword was still far heavier than she expected, and she sighed and dropped her shoulders at him. 'Your sister would have been up for it,' he said.

'Of course she would have. She is basically a _boy_.'

'She had lessons, you know.'

Sansa looked up at him, sharply. 'She wasn't allowed.'

He shook his head. 'She had some Braavosi teaching her. I could hear him drawling at her from the corridors, shouting at her to be a cat or a bird or something.'

'She had a _dancing_ master that she went to every day, but she –' Sansa stopped, the realisation quickly coming. 'Oh, _Ayra._' She suddenly grew mournful.

Sandor looked down at her with gruff kindness. 'She'll be right.'

'Do you know that she's alive?' Sansa tilted her head up at him, tears forming.

'I don't. But I know that they never found her. And she's a scrapper, isn't she?'

Sansa gulped and nodded, and then looked more resolutely at the sword she was holding. 'It's really too heavy. I can't do much with it.'

'All you need to know is this. If a man's wearing armour, go for the gaps.' He gestured on himself. 'The neck, underneath the arm, stomach, top of the thigh.'

She looked at the sword, remembering her father's great Valerian steel, Ice, always hanging by his leg, and with effort lifted the blade up to Sandor's neck. 'Here,' she repeated.

'Careful,' he said, moving his chin just a little away from the sword, but otherwise remaining utterly still.

She gave a glimmer of a smile, and turned the blade so that it gave a brief flash in the early morning sun. The tip just touched the skin of his neck beneath his beard, on the unburnt side of his face. She could kill him right now, if she wanted to. He eyed her, with a guarded daring, as if he was almost inviting her to press the blade in. Her arm started to tremble just a little with the weight of it.

'Here,' Sansa moved it to underneath his arm, 'here,' and directly in front of his stomach, 'and here.' She moved the sword down to the corner of his inner thigh, and brought up her other hand to keep the sword still. 'It is _very_ heavy,' she said, with the briefest hint of a grin.

Sandor looked at her, still trying to work her out. They seemed to be caught between something very funny and very dangerous. He moved to the side, deftly grabbing the sword off her as if it were simply a feasting knife, and slotted it into his scabbard, shaking his head in a small movement. A mixture of wonder at her audacity, and admonishment.

Sansa bit away her grin. 'What about if I've just got my dagger? That's more likely, after all.'

'Well, the first thing is not to go for the hand,' Sandor waved his wound at her. He was never going to let her forget it. She sighed at him and he looked at her more pensively. 'Best go straight for the throat if you can. You're tall enough. Or the eyes, I reckon.' He put his hand out, gesturing for her dagger.

She took it from the ankle strap and went to give it to him. Instead, he clasped her fingers shut around the handle with his own hand, then brought it, along with her arm, up to his throat. He kept it there, looking at her challengingly, his hand around hers.

There was a pause. Sansa didn't breathe. Swiftly, Sandor drew her hand in the air just in front of his neck and held her gaze, more piercingly than he ever had before.

Then he dropped her hand and staggered back, clutching his hand to his throat in mock-agony, the fingers of his other hand pretending to be the blood spattering out, and crashed to the ground, making hideously guttural choking noises.

Sansa breathed out sharply, relieved, trying not to laugh. 'Don't.' He lay still in the grass. She went up to him and stood next to his motionless body, her hands on her hips. His arms were splayed outwards and his eyes shut. 'That's horrible.'

He opened his eyes and looked up at her. 'You'd better not say that to the first man you're trying to kill. It'll be much less impressive if you do.'

She grinned at him, and held her hand out. He looked at it and back up at her, then sat up and took it, heaving himself up, his weight pulling Sansa forward two quick steps towards him.

Just a foot apart from her, he held her hand for a moment longer with an opaque look, before dropping it. 'Let's get going.'


	11. Chapter 11

He let her lead today, occasionally letting her know where to turn her mare. The land seemed to be changing slowly as they edged further north – darker, and more green. There was the scent of Jack-by-the-hedge, crushed under the horse's hooves. A big bird, an eagle of some kind, wheeled around in circles above them, an occasional cry like the release of an arrow. Sansa could feel his eyes on her, and thought over and over about their sword-game. The blade at his thigh. She couldn't quite believe that she had dared. His hands clasped around hers on the dagger haft, and his look.

As the sun sat high in a flawless indigo sky, their path ran abreast of a wide river, grey-gold and glittering. They stopped to fill their skins and let the horses drink at a shallow bend where the lively water slowed a little. Sansa knelt down on the bank, crushing wildflowers and nettles, and leant down to splash her face, Sorrel snorting through her nose behind her and munching the grass. The water was sharp, and deliciously refreshing. She'd been feeling groggy all morning, with a thick throat, and this cleared her head a little. As she went to scoop up more water, she saw a shadow, the length of her forearm, weave past. And then another.

She sat back on her heels and turned round to Sandor. 'There are fish in here.' He looked over from where he stood further down the bank with Stranger. 'Big ones.'

He tied Stranger's reins to a slim birch tree and walked over to her, peering into the river. Three more large fish lazily drifted past, turning a little in the light. 'Trout,' he said, and began shrugging off his armour. He removed it, piece by piece, leaving it in a pile in the grass, followed by his mail, which came off in a tangle, and sat heavily down. 'Coming in?' He unselfconsciously tugged off his boots.

She couldn't tell if he was joking or not. 'To do what?'

'To catch one.'

He stood up, wearing just his breeches and shirt, and rolled the sleeves up. Sansa squinted up at him, astonished, as he stood at the river edge, looking at the rushing water. His feet were bare, and there was dark hair on his pale, thick-calved lower legs and ankles. He sat down at the edge, before using a hand to lever himself in. The water went up to his shins, and then his knees, soaking the lower legs of his breeches, but he hardly seemed to notice.

He waded out into the middle, and turned around to her. 'It's not that cold, you know.'

'I can't.' He frowned at her, mock-impatiently. 'I've only got - this dress.'

He looked at her keenly for a second, then grinned and shrugged. 'Suit yourself.' He bent over, staring into the water.

Without his armour on – she almost never saw him without it, he'd even slept in it - he seemed lighter of heart, and much less ferocious. And he didn't seem to care one bit about being in the water, and in front of her in a state of relative undress. She felt bold. She stood up, and began to undo the fastenings at the back of her bodice.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

By the time Sandor leant up again, she was wriggling out of her woollen skirts, leaving her standing in her white linen smock, which reached just below her knees. Her dagger belt was wound around her leg just above her boots. He saw her, and seemed to freeze, startled. Sansa stepped out of the circle of her dress as it sagged to the ground, blushing unimaginably, but doing her very best to appear nonchalant. Her mind raced as she sat down with her back to him to undo her boots and pull off her short stockings and dagger belt. She already wished that she could stop and return to being dressed on the bank, but it was too late now.

Taking a deep breath, she swung around to him. 'It had better not be cold,' she said in the most ordinary voice that she could muster. He didn't say anything, but just watched as she hung her legs over the edge of the bank.

The water _was_ cold, but she could manage it. The pools around Winterfell could be so icy that you couldn't swim in it for more than a few, gasping breaths. Robb, Jon and Theon would take it turns to see how long they could last, their torsos almost blue when they finally emerged. She lowered herself into the water, it immediately reaching her knees and darkening the lower material of her smock. She waded through the long, thick stems of white crowfoot over towards Sandor, her arms outstretched at her sides as she tried to balance, her toes squelching in the mud.

He was still looking at her slightly agape, then seemed to come to his senses, and brought his finger to his lips. She stopped a few paces away from him, and looked down into the water. She could see nothing but a few long, stringy weeds. He slowly leant down, put his arms in the water and hung there, motionless. After what seemed a long while, he abruptly righted, holding a trout in his hands, which wriggled frenziedly. He wrestled with it, trying to keep hold of it, before it shot out of his hands and back into the water, whipping away. Sansa shouted a laugh at the shock and suddenness of it, and clapped her hand over her mouth.

Sandor looked at her in surprise and pleasure, and then pretended to look peevish. 'Your turn, then.'

Still giggling, Sansa leant down and let her arms fall into the water, trying to keep her limbs as still as possible in the sway of the river. Her hair slipped over her shoulders, the ends falling into the water. She was conscious that her smock hung slightly away from her body, and that the skin just below her neck was totally exposed. A leaf shaped like a little rowboat sailed past her arms. She saw a couple of much smaller fish, the size of her little finger, swim past. Her lower back started to ache a little.

Suddenly a dappled brown trout swam past one of her legs, and then another, large and deft, with its thin, rose-coloured horizontal stripe. She held her breath, desperately trying not to move. Part of her wanted to scream very loudly and race out of the water. Then a trout was there between her hands, and she grabbed it and stood up. The fish was slippery, and flapping about frantically. She yelled gleefully, trying to hold it. Sandor moved quickly up to her. The fish slithered from her grasp but he managed to catch it, hold it tight, and stride, splashing dramatically, to the bank, where he threw it down.

It thrashed about on the grass, tail and head flailing against the ground in panicked throes, almost bouncing itself back to the water. Sandor gave a curious, strangulated yelp and kept flinging it a bit further away from the river, but the fish didn't stop floundering. Finally, he leapt onto the bank, water flying everywhere, grabbed a large stick and bashed it on the head three times until it finally stopped moving. Sansa, still in the middle of the river, was laughing her head off. She couldn't help it. It was the funniest thing that she'd seen in a long, long time.

Sandor looked round at her, dripping wet, as she stood in the middle of the river, in hysterics. 'I'm glad that _you_ find it so amusing,' he said, pretending to be offended as he flopped down next to the dead trout.

She slowly waded back to the bank against the drag of the river, teetering a little in the mud, and pulled herself up onto the bank, giggling helplessly. She sat down next to him, clutching her sides. 'I'm sorry. It was just – so funny. I've never - held a fish before.' And she burst into fresh peals of laughter.

He grinned at seeing her so unaffectedly joyous and flung his fingers in the air, sending water flying.

Sansa calmed a little, putting her hand to her forehead. 'My head hurts.'

He shook her head at her benignly. 'You great daft thing.' He flicked a drop of river at her.

She gave a big sigh, her laughter finally subsiding, and rubbed her face. 'Do we need to make a fire?'

Sandor looked about him. 'Not in the middle of the day, it'll slow us down.'

'How do we eat it then?'

'Just as it is,' he said, lying down on the bank, his hands behind his head.

Sansa wrinkled her nose, slightly appalled. '_Raw_?'

He closed his eyes, enjoying the sun. 'Ay. Raw.'

She swallowed, looking at the trout. 'You'll eat anything, won't you?'

Sandor snorted. 'When you're out at war, in stinking tents in the woods, and not enough food is cooked for you because there are too many men and not enough coin, you start being imaginative. So yes, I do eat almost anything. Birds, squirrels, snails, nettles, crazy laughing she-wolves…'

Sansa grinned self-consciously at the ground, then took her dagger out of her ankle strap on the ground and handed it to him. He sat up. 'Better show me how it's done, then,' she said, whilst putting her hand to her head again. It really did hurt.

Sandor slit open the belly of the trout and dug his fingers in, poking at the innards until they slithered out, slopping into the grass. He flattened out the fish, chopped off the head, and sawed on the top of the spine until it came free. He swiftly tugged free the spine and peeled it away, most of the fine bones coming with it. He took the flapping fillet to the river and rinsed it, cleaning away the rest of the innards, and slapped it back on the grass. He then cut away at a small piece of flesh, removing the skin, and handed it to Sansa. She took it and eyed it warily, then sat up straight, took a deep breath, and bit into it.

It was stringy, and her stomach turned slightly as the flesh snagged between her teeth. But it was also cold, and meaty, and seemed to taste of the sharp, clear river. She ate it as best she could, watching him saw off himself a larger piece and gnaw at it indelicately. She suddenly wondered what her family would think of her, sitting there in her smock, her bare lower legs glistening with little droplets, next to a man who had been sworn to serve the Lannisters, who they'd last seen in a fearsome dog helm. Well, at least Arya would be impressed with the fish-catching, though perhaps pull a face about the state of her undress. Her mother would be horrified. At that moment, ravenous, her hair as tangled as a wildling's - and with him giving her an occasional sly glance from underneath his falling hair, thinking she wasn't noticing - she really didn't care too much.


	12. Chapter 12

As the day waned, Sandor seemed to be leading them into thicker woods, and they were slowing all the while. The horses weren't happy, snorting through their nostrils as they picked their way over mounds and hollows.

Sansa ducked a low branch. 'Where are we going?'

He pointed upwards. 'Rain's coming.'

Mottled clouds hung overhead in between the gaps in the branches. They didn't look so bad to her, but the air did seem to hum with tension, waiting. It was as if a leather belt was tightening around her forehead.

The rain started plashing, drop by heavy drop, not long afterwards, and the wood lost almost all its light. Spots darkened her cloak and fell on her face, even with the hood. Sorrel grumbled, her ears twitching. In the gloom, Sansa peered ahead to see Sandor dismount.

'There'll be no fires tonight.' He sounded like he almost relished it.

She screwed her face up into the air. 'Maybe it'll stop soon.' The rain seemed to hear her, and begin to lash down more heavily.

They grabbed their blankets and bundles as it became a downpour. Sansa wrapped herself up in her blanket and crouched, sitting, under an overhanging broom bush. Sandor was a little distance off, his hood over his head. She tucked her head into her chest, and realised how lucky they'd been not to have any rain until now. There was nothing to do but sit, and wait for it to be over.

It didn't stop. Sansa was soaked through, the water like cold palms pressing on her arms and legs.

'Fuck this', she heard Sandor mutter, before he got up, throwing his blanket aside. He disappeared into the bushes. Her shelter seemed to be dissolving above her, the rain as heavy as pebbles on her head. The thought of it lasting all night made her utterly despondent. It was all very well for him: his armour at least kept the rain off. She was in nothing but wool, worsted and linen. Her throat scratched. She began shivering uncontrollably, wondering where he'd gone.

'We're in luck.' Sandor was suddenly standing over her. She looked up at him miserably. 'Come on'.

She put a hand down, right into a blotchy pool of mud. With her dress plastered to her legs, and clutching her wet blanket to her, she dragged her feet after him, slipping slightly in the leaf-mulch. He crashed through a blackthorn bush, which sprang back in her face. She picked her way through it, tiny thorns snagging on her cloak, to find him holding up some branches for her to pass underneath. She bent under his arm, and straightened out to see an ancient yew tree, its great trunk as wide as a cart, and perfectly hollowed-out, with an arched opening. It looked like a house for a grumkin. She looked up at him gratefully.

He grinned at her, his hair stuck to his face. 'I'll get the horses'.

The hollowed trunk was spacious enough for them both. Sandor threw in their bundles before ducking down and thunking to the ground, groaning, pushing his wet hair away from his face. Sansa was suddenly aware again of how much bigger than her he was: his frame seemed to blot out what little evening light there was. She sat up against the bark and lay her head against it, the rotten wood sweetly pungent-smelling, wiping her muddy hand on the wall. She watched a woodlouse scuttle away from her. She felt dazed. He made a loud, self-conscious sigh, and looked over to her, smiling slightly. She gazed at him opaquely.

'It's just rain,' he said. 'You'll dry.'

'I know,' she said in a small voice.

Sandor frowned at her, seeming uncomfortable that she wasn't so good-humoured as she'd been that afternoon. He rummaged in his saddlebag, pulled out some bread, and offered it to her. She shook her head.

'You always want to eat.'

Sansa swallowed, and winced. Her throat felt spiky, like she'd been eating gorse thorns. 'I'm not hungry.'

'You will be.' He waggled it in front of her face. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. 'Suit yourself, then,' he muttered gently, and she heard him ripping the bread with his teeth.

Sansa slept fitfully, gnarled yew roots prodding into her back, however much she shifted around. The rain was relentless, sheets of water coursing down outside and puddling into their shelter. Her head throbbed and her throat itched. She peered at Sandor, who'd shoved his legs outwards, and who was snoring peacefully. One boot rested against her calf. He seemed unruffled by the cold, or the rain, or the lack of food. In winter, he'd probably just curl up in the snowdrifts like a cat in a basket. The further away they got from King's Landing, the lighter he seemed. She gave a sudden shiver.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

When she next opened her eyes, everything was quiet. The rain had stopped, and there was an earthy smell, like toadstools, in the air. Light the colour of milk-vetch filtered down. She moved her head over to Sandor, who was awake and looking at her, a faintly worried expression on his face. His foot was no longer touching her leg. She opened her mouth to speak, and coughed, her throat scratching.

'Are you alright?' he asked, looking gruffly awkward.

Her head felt as heavy as a boulder. 'I think I have a malady.'

'You were mumbling something.'

She put her hand to her cheek. It was burning. 'I don't remember.'

He thrust a waterskin at her. 'Better drink.' Every swallow she took hurt. She let her head fall against the bark again. Sandor chewed on his thumbnail, frowning at her. 'Do you think you can move?'

He probably hadn't done much nursing, she thought ruefully. 'Ay.'

A flash of shock crossed his face then, and she realised that she'd unthinkingly used one of his most common expressions. 'Come on then,' he said. 'Sorrel will see you right.'

They rode slowly, side by side when the path was wide enough, with her mare seeming aware that she was weaker, and moving with care and quietness. Sandor kept eyeing her with a discomfited concern. Sansa had a raging thirst and had drunk all the water from both of their skins. They rode up on a high ridge, which eventually lay abreast of a stream, far below, masked by densely tangled undergrowth.

Sandor trotted his horse back to her. 'Wait here.' He leant over and took her waterskin. 'I'll fetch more water.' He took Stranger up and down the path, searching for a way down, and then disappeared into the bushes.

Sansa leant down on her saddle and hugged Sorrel, putting her fingers in her mane, angry with herself and trying to remember the last time she'd felt so horrible. She didn't want to be seen as useless all over again, after all the progress she'd made in impressing him. Becoming a wolf-wildling. She realised that she urgently needed to relieve herself, and slid off her mare, tying her to a branch. She staggered off the path and behind a tree and crouched down, closing her eyes.

'Who's this then?' A man's voice, rough-accented, cut through her foggy thoughts like a longsword.


	13. Chapter 13

Sansa abruptly righted herself and thwacked her head on a branch. She brought a hand to her skull and turned round. Three men, looking at her curiously. They were dressed in mismatched mail and dented armour, muted colours. There were no banners and she couldn't tell whom they might be affiliated with, if anyone. Two of them had broadswords and the other leaned on a longbow.

'Who – what do you want?' She hoped that she sounded fearless.

'We want to know who you are and why you're pissing on our path,' said the man in the centre. A southern country accent. Tall, thin and bearded, with a scar across one cheek.

She clenched her jaw, and removed her hand from her head, standing straight and looking him in the eye. 'I'm no one.'

'Ha! I find that hard to believe,' said the arrowman on the right, spitting on the ground on front of him. He had a mouthful of black, broken teeth and sounded like a northerner.

They could be sworn to her brother. If she was lucky, she might be able to get back to her family even sooner. 'Who do you fight for?' she asked.

'No one, same as you,' said the first man. 'No one but ourselves, anyway.' Her heart sank. He narrowed his eyes, chewing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, and looked her up and down. 'What's your business, going through here?'

'Nothing', she blurted, too loudly. 'I'm just – heading to the next village.'

'What village is that then?' asked the third man, a small, stout swordbearer with a strange, bloodshot eye.

Sansa's heart beat wildly. 'I – I don't know it's name. I'm just – looking for my cousin. I've a message for her, from – my mother.'

The second man had wandered over to Sorrel and was stroking her neck idly, and examining the saddlebag. The tall, bearded one took a step closer and leant down, almost benevolently, speaking to her as if she was a small child. 'You're not very convincing.' He scrutinised her with an almost kindly expression, and she flinched under it, lowering her eyes.

'She's very pretty, though,' said the third man from behind him.

'She is.' He seemed to be acting a part in play. Then he straightened up, and took a sudden breath in, and spoke quickly and straightforwardly, as if haggling over the price of an apple. 'Well, the usual punishment for a lady who pisses on our land is to lie with us, all three. Who d'you want first?'

The panic that hit Sansa was almost like a blow to the stomach. 'N- no,' she said, backing away.

'We won't bite,' he said in a sing-song voice, smiling at her. She turned to run. 'Not unless you want us to.'

Sansa bolted; he grabbed her elbow, swift as lightning, and held it firmly. She wriggled madly - the trout flailing on the bank - and as he tried to grab her round the waist, suddenly got free. She leant down to her ankle to grab her dagger. As she pulled it out, the black-mouthed man was suddenly there, and kicked it out of her hand. She was still bent down, and he grabbed her shoulder and stamped violently on her wrist. She fell to the ground, pinned by his foot, and as she did, her wrist turned awkwardly and something snapped. A sharp, blinding pain shot up her arm. She cried out, arching her back, her arm outstretched, the boot squashing her hand into the ground.

The bearded one stood over her, his hands on his hips, shaking his head. 'Blimey,' he said to his companion. 'She's a bit of a feisty one.'

'It's that hair,' said the other. 'They say redheads have a bit of wildling in 'em.'

'Hhm.' The first man pressed his lips together and looked at her mildly. 'I've always wanted to fuck a wildling.' Sansa whimpered. He began to unbuckle his mailbelt. 'Well, I saw her fir –'

He suddenly thrust his chest forward. There was a startled expression on his face, and he toppled slowly towards her, crashing down on her side, an arrow in his back.

The other man looked round wildly. 'Fuck,' he breathed, pulling his sword out and taking his boot off her wrist, which felt as limp and useless as a doll's.

She rolled the tall man off her, sobbing as he wheezed a last breath. The arrow snapped in two underneath him. As she sat up, she could see the other man running back towards the path, sword in hand, before he stopped short, an arrow suddenly in his stomach, and wheeled round, crumpling to the ground. Dazed, Sansa stood up. She could hear more shouting, and a horse, trumpeting horribly. She looked at her hand.

It hung strangely, her thumb too far away from her wrist. A glimpse of white bone. The trees around her blurred, and tilted, and she watched the crushed leaves on the ground come rushing up towards her.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

Moths were in her ears. Fluttering, trapped against her skull, trying desperately to get free. She was on a boat, swooning up and down, the back of her head rolling and thudding against something soft. The thin green taste of wildfire liquid was sloshing up and down in her throat. She could almost see it, a long trickle winding down inside her and suddenly rising up again. And bright woods, golden, full of soldiers ten feet tall and skeletal, their spears pointing up towards the sun. And she was nestling in a wolf's arms.

*S*S*S*S*S*S

She was dreaming again, of being in a bed. Tucked in with heavy, starched linen, like someone was lying on her. Her feet sought the corners of the bed, as cool as the shadows made by dappled sunlight in a wood.

A woman was looking at her, seated very close to the bed, her face was warm with concern. She was perhaps ten years older than Sansa, with a ruddy complexion and wisps of wiry brown hair tucked under a thin white cap.

'Alright, lass?' She spoke softly, with the round inflections of a northerner.

'Am I home?' Her own voice sounded very far away, as if floating leagues above her.

'Don't think so,' said the woman. 'Unless you want to live on a poor goat farm with a man who snores too much.'

Sansa lifted her eyes. She was lying in a large bed in a small room with one high window that had a murky, thick pane. The stone walls bulged and were roughly whitewashed. She was in a smock, not her own. The woman put a cool palm against Sansa's forehead.

'Better', she said, and not to Sansa. Sandor was standing up in the furthest corner of the room, his head almost touching the ceiling. His face looked drawn.

'I'll be downstairs, then,' he said to the woman, and slipped out of the door.

Sansa swallowed dryly. The woman leant down and brought up a cup and held it to her lips. She gulped it slowly, feeling the water wind down her throat and into her stomach, and lay her head back on the pillow, exhausted. 'What – where am I?'

'You're in my house. In my bed, in fact, not that me and Heweg are bothered when we're being paid for the pleasure.'

Sansa didn't say anything, wishing her mind didn't feel so muddy. Her arm was lying folded diagonally over her chest on top of the sheets. A thin stick ran along the length of each side of her wrist, and her forearm and hand had been wrapped in white strips. She tried to move it. It was as if someone had stabbed a fork in her hand. '_Ow._'

'I wouldn't move that too much, if I were you,' said the woman, looking at her sagely. 'I'm no healer, but I've bound it up as best I could.'

'What - happened?'

'You had a fever.' The woman put the cup back down. 'A bad one, too. Reckon you would have gone to ground even if you hadn't been attacked.'

Oh Gods. The men. The two of them running her down. The arrows. She tried to move. 'Am I better, do you think?'

'You'll be fine. Maybe another day or two. Though I'll be happy to have this mattress back after all that sleeping with the goats.'

_All_ that sleeping? 'How long have I been here?'

The woman looked at her simply. 'You've been asleep for two days and nights, lass.'

'Two days…?' Sansa repeated, wonderingly.

'Just as well you've got your big man looking out for you, whatever he is to you.'

Sansa looked at her. 'Do you – do you think so?'

'I reckon.' The woman raised her eyebrows. 'He hasn't slept as far as I know in all the time you've lain there. Just sat here, waiting on you like a faithful hound.' She gestured to the chair she was sitting in.

Sansa took a long, deep breath in, and closed her eyes.


End file.
